Good looks may play a role in fetching better salary: study

Washington: As a saying, "beauty is skin deep" sounds fair, but in the real world where money is top priority, physical attractiveness might have a lot more prominence than just inner beauty.

A study finds that healthier, more intelligent people have superior personality traits are preferred more for taking fatter pay checks home than those who are aesthetically compromised. The study appeared in Springer's Journal of Business and Psychology.

The findings indicated that population-based surveys showed that people who are physically attractive earn more than the average Joe or Jane, while those who are aesthetically compromised - that gives pleasure through beauty - earn less.

More attractive lawyers and MBA graduates are also said to earn more. Researchers, Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Mary Still of the University of Massachusetts in Boston analysed a nationally representative sample from a US data set that had very precise and repeated measures of physical attractiveness.

It measured physical attractiveness of all respondents on a five-point scale at four different points in life over 13 years.

Their analysis showed that people are not necessarily discriminated against because of their looks. The beauty premium theory was dispelled when the researchers took into account factors such as health, intelligence and major personality factors together with other correlates of physical attractiveness.

Healthier and more intelligent respondents and those with more conscientious, more extraverted and less Neurotic personality traits earned significantly more than others.

"Physically more attractive workers may earn more, not necessarily because they are more beautiful, but because they are healthier, more intelligent and have better personality traits conducive to higher earnings, such as being more conscientious, more extraverted and less Neurotic," Kanazawa explained.

Still stated that the methods used in other studies might explain why the findings in the current research are contrary to many current thoughts about the economics of beauty.