How To Be Super Successful: Be Tall and Attractive?

In an ideal world, people are hired and promoted because of their abilities, competence, attitudes and interpersonal skills--right? Maybe not.

Despite how far we've come in the areas of recruiting, selecting and developing people in organizations, there's evidence that we still judge people based on what some would consider superficial criteria. In fact, there's lots of evidence to show that people have gained success in their careers because they are taller and more attractive.

The Institute of Social and Economic Research recently published a study about he connection between popularity in high school and earning power later in life. New York Magazine, summarized the study by saying, "this study may seem to burst our Revenge of the Nerds fantasies, but it's logical that people who are attractive, likable and socially comfortable...should get ahead in corporate settings." And there's more data to back up that claim. Gordon Patzer, in his book, [external link] Looks, draws from a wide body of research to describe the advantaged life of an attractive person from childhood to a job in sales.

A study by University of Florida researchers and published recently in the [external link] Journal of Applied Psychology, argue there is compellling evidence to support the proposition that attractive people get more of almost everything from birth--from medical attention in the hospital to attention from teachers and peers in school which leads to a positive spiral toward better self image and higher attainment through life.

Daniel S. Hamermesh, an economist at the University of Texas, and Jeff Biddle, an economist at Michigan State University, studied demographic and job types across industries and concluded the impact of individuals' looks on their earnings was independent of occupation. They concluded that less attractive people earn 5-10% less in all occupations. These findings were supported by a research paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which concluded that appearance can affect productivity.

Charles Feng, a human biologist at Stanford University wrote in an article in the [external link] Journal of Young Investigators, that the explanation for humans' preference for physically attractive people is symmetry. Researchers have demonstrated that babies spend more time staring at pictures of symmetric individuals. Feng quotes the studies of Victor Johnston of New Mexico State University who used a program called FacePrints, which shows viewers facial images of variable attractiveness. The viewers then rate the pictures on a beauty scale of 1-10. The pictures with the best ratings were merged together. All the pictures that were rated as 9 or more were super-symmetric. This study was replicated in other cultures in Asia and South America with the same results. Feng goes to argue, based on research, that in our society, attractive people tend to be more intelligent, better adjusted, more popular and have more occupational success.

What about being tall?

Multiple studies have found that an extra inch of height over the average can be worth an extra $1,000 per year, with the amount increasing as the individual measures over 6 feet tall. The average height of CEOs of large corporations in North America is 6'2". Nowhere is the correlation between height and career success been more striking than in politics, particularly the U.S. Presidency. Of the 43 American presidents, only five have been below average height, with the last (Benjamin Harrison) in 1888. Most presidents have been above average height, with the tallest being Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson, Clinton, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Obama.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania argue, based on their research, that tall men who were short in high school, earn like short men, while short men who were tall in high school, earn like tall men. Arianne Cohen, author of [external link] The Tall Book, says that tall people are 90% more likely to ascend to the CEO chairs of Fortune 500 companies. And the preference applies equally to female executives as to males, with the average height of prominent female CEOs being 5'9".

While the conclusions from these research studies on attractiveness and height may not sit well with modern management practices, or our notions of fairness and non-discriminatory behavior, it appears that in some ways, we still make judgments about people based on appearance.