Get Paid More, If You're Pretty

That's what a Yale professor found in his research

Are you one of the beautiful people? Well, then chances are that you get paid better than your uglier co-workers, according to a new Yale University study.

The study looked at 4,000 young men and women and found that beauty boosted paychecks more than intelligence. In fact, those considered attractive earned up to 10 percent more than average looking friends or colleagues, the Daily Mail of London reports.

Yale researcher Jason Fletcher rated the attractiveness of the men and women. Just over half were judged average, while 7 percent were felt to be very attractive and 8 percent were judged unattractive or very unattractive.

Volunteers took IQ tests and disclosed their salaries.  

"The results do show that people's looks have an impact on their wages and it can be very substantial," Dr. Fletcher told the journal Economics Letters.

As an example, someone who scored 14 points higher on the IQ test, saw a 3 to 6 percent increase in their salary.  But that increased 5 to 10 percent for the people judged as being attractive.  

It's not clear what is behind the phenomenon, but it could be that beauty breeds confidence. Those who are confident might appear to be doing better than they are and might have fewer reservations about asking for pay raise.

 


 

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