The Importance of Being Pretty
I receive a newsletter every week from Kevin Hogan (http://www.kevinhogan.com), an expert on influence and persuasion and yes, how men can attract women – men need all the help they can get. One of the articles this week focused on the importance of attractiveness in being successful.
I have known since I was a little kid that there were certain guys I could not even HOPE to attract. When the Beatles were big, most of the girls had crushes on Paul. I also had a crush on Paul but I always told people I had a crush on Ringo, considered the least attractive of the Fab Four. Even as a child, I knew I wasn’t attractive enough to get the popular guy. (Of course, if I had any concept of how much money he was pulling in and how wealth makes people suddenly attractive, I would have known that Ringo was out of my league, too.)
As an adult I learned that this was a predominantly female phenomenon (say that three times fast). Men, no matter how unattractive, stupid and broke, for some reason think they have a chance with supermodels. I think stupid would be the key personality trait for this phenomenon.
I bring this up because new research from the University of Texas, Austin proves what I have known since I was seven. (I hope they didn’t get research money for this – they could have just called me.)
David Buss, psychology researcher at the university said, “When reviewing the qualities they desire in romantic partners, women gauge what they can get based on what they got, and women who are considered physically attractive maintain high standards for prospective partners across a variety of characteristics.”
But the romantic aspect is small potatoes compared with the earning prospects of unattractive women. Studies show that unattractive women are promoted less often and with less salary increase than their attractive counterparts to a much greater degree by women superiors than by their male counterparts.
In other words, it isn’t a case of just men promoting attractive women over unattractive women, women do it too and they do it more often. I would venture that women do this because they understand the psyche of women. Unattractive women expect less and are willing to accept less, whether it is a boyfriend or a career.
Back when I was producing shows, I remember overhearing two of my cast members talking about another actress. Apparently the third woman was less attractive than the other two and she had the gall to stand up for herself when she was being pushed around on a minor issue. The other two were up in arms. The basic message from them was, “She is overweight and unattractive. She should make more of an effort to be nice and appeasing.” Translation: Fat people must be funny and happy, otherwise more attractive people won’t tolerate them. For the record, I never hired those two witches again. But they were verbalizing a basic truth: unattractive people are discriminated against, consciously and unconsciously.
In this climate where people trip all over themselves to be politically correct, no one wants to say that looks matter. But the truth is, looks matter. They are a component in your happiness quotient, they are definitely a HUGE component in your success in life, both financially and romantically.
Fortunately for most of us, attractiveness is also subjective and varies widely, not just from country to country, but state to state. In addition, people we like become more attractive in our eyes. I thought this was a uniquely female characteristic, but over the years I have found that men have this capacity, too. So your actual physical looks have less to do with attractiveness than people’s perception of your looks.
So if you are not as attractive as you want to be (and women are MUCH more self-critical than men are on this), what can you do? I was thinking I could use this data to support writing off a boob job, liposuction and face lift as a legitimate business expense. And I think I could do it, too! But that may be a little extreme.
The first thing you can do is start thinking of yourself as attractive because studies show that what we expect is directly related to how we feel about ourselves. So, expect more. Second, exude an air of confidence. Take that list of accomplishments that I had you write down (Day 2 of Love Taps: http://www.dontmakemeslapyou.com/lovetaps.htm) and go through it – every day if necessary. Remind yourself of your successes, skills and experience and arm yourself with that knowledge before you go out to do battle. People trust and buy from people who are sure of themselves. Confidence is attractive.
The third thing is to make yourself more attractive. This is not sexist: this goes the same for men as for women. Take a look at how the successful people in your industry dress, how they wear their hair, what kind of watches they wear and what kind of briefcases they carry. Use them as models. People are attracted to people who are like them. You don’t have to go in for plastic surgery though you shouldn’t feel guilty if you get it, either. But in order to advance, you need to put yourself up at least one level in dress and behavior. (Somewhere I can hear my mother saying, “Stand up straight.”)
If you needed to take a continuing education course to be eligible for a promotion or to keep up with your industry standards, you would spend the money to do it. This is the same thing. Take your emotions out of it. Take away your sense of what is fair and what is not fair. This is business. This is your money and your future. So shoulders back, lipstick on, ego intact. You now have another weapon in your arsenal for success. You.