Physical attractiveness bias in the legal system (2017)
thelawproject.com.au
thelawproject.com.au
When I was in grad school (physics) the female grad students used to talk about how you couldn't wear makeup or do your hair and be taken seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox
In short: people can be correct when they notice an inverse correlation, because their world consists of people who got into the same university, or workplace, or club, as them. But the correlation is exactly the opposite in society as a whole.
B) Dressing to the nines can work against you as a lawyer or litigant
Source: I study jurors and coach trial lawyers for a living, among other things.
https://abovethelaw.com/2017/05/at-lunch-with-david-boies-20...
Re: David Boies (who is a prominent Manhattan attorney):
> Part of the David Boies legend is his rejection of high fashion. He’s a millionaire many times over, and many aspects of his lifestyle reflect what I’m guessing is a nine-figure net worth — his primary residence, an 8,000-square-foot mansion on almost 10 acres; an $8 million pied-à-terre here in New York City, at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel; and a racing yacht, because you’re nobody until you have a yacht. But his wealth doesn’t go into his wardrobe. He eschews Prada and Patek Philippe in favor of navy blue suits from Sears or Lands’ End, inexpensive plastic wristwatches (worn over his sleeve), and what look like black sneakers (but are actually walking shoes by Merrell).
He did represent Al Gore before the Supreme Court, although I suppose that's ancient history now. And he was involved in the SCO vs. Linux stuff.
Maybe _everyone_ on a jury is filtered out to only take people completely disconnected from society but.... probably not.
(case in point: many people on this website are not in legal professions yet recognize the name)
as far as your point, the 1% of people here reading recognized the name. didn't know why, then googled and remembered. the jury is not here. it's '12 random people from the dmv,' and they don't recognize it, nor will they care to google it. they don't even know who steve jobs is, and won't google it on their iphone.
Value to who ?
Also, fashion isn't for strangers. I mean, I don't know anything about what is fashionable. Nearly nothing at all. So obviously stranger can't impress me with expensive clothes because I can't detect it. The situation is similar with most fashions which are signals for inside an in crowd.
It is like a developer putting "Haskell" or "Scheme" on a resume. The goal isn't to impress randoms in HR who don't know what a Haskell is and are suspicious of scheming programmers. It is to signal within a group of semi-peers who don't specifically know who you are.
Defense attorneys usually put on a show to relate to you in some way. The prosecution usually looks like undertakers and usually appeal to the institution of justice, sacred duty as a citizen, etc.
Just different flavors of bullshit.
Reforms expanded the pool, for instance in NY.
From a 1996 NY Times article:
"As of Jan. 1, all 27 former exemptions and disqualifications for jury duty in New York State have been repealed"
"...as many as one-third of Long Island's residents have been exempt from jury duty because of their white-collar professions, particularly doctors, dentists and lawyers"
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/07/nyregion/exemptions-for-j...
Also, I’m fortunate to have a job where there is no financial penalty for service, I find it interesting, and I’m not comfortable hamming up some nonsense to avoid it. I’m always surprised I’m picked because of my job (lawyers don’t like engineers on juries), and I am friends or relatives with a bunch of attorneys and policemen.
Consider a legal trial to be a giant machine executing a huge set of detailed and arcane and sometimes arbitrary instructions. Either the machine does the right thing (one side arguing there was no crime) or the wrong thing (the other side arguing there was a crime). What engineer doesn't love figuring out why the machine's behaviour is correct or incorrect?
That's not universal -- two of the most religious people I've met were some flavor of engineer; they never bother to challenge their own biases -- but in aggregate they're a riskier jury pick than a teamster or housewife or cashier.
Trial lawyers present a narrative to the jury, and thus prefer jurors who are more likely to believe the presented narrative. Your typical engineer believes themselves to be capable of discerning truth independent of expert opinion. This could be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on how the trial lawyer plans to present their narrative.
If a lawyer dresses to the nines and wins the case, the client will feel justified in paying their fees.
Even if loud, angry lawyer guy doesn't win, dragging them to court and making them pay for a lawyer -- and then slinging vitriol at them in court -- has more emotional satisfaction than a dispassionate, slow, boring, go-nowhere hearing that ends with a moderate settlement.
(note: in some places the loser pays all of the fees for the winner, so locality matters here)
A hobo who hasn't showered in a decade should be able to argue his case, be heard and receive justice. Anything less, you're using rules to enforce a social order, the legal system has no relationship with justice if this is acceptable.
Should is they keyword and maybe one day we'll reach that point. Meanwhile, looks and appearance can make a huge difference, so why take the chance?
How someone looks informs your prior probability of who they are. What they say informs your posterior probability, but you gotta take that prior into account when forming the posterior. At least, if you want 'accurate' statistics.
(Bias - variance trade-off not withstanding, nor second-order effects of doing the 'correct' thing being possibly more detrimental than the advantage given by the 'correct' thing)
Are you comfortable applying this same bayesian logic to other factors like race?
Secondly, and more importantly I think, what effects does a 'correct' bias have when it starts interacting with other people. It might be the optimal choice in isolation. But that doesn't make it a good idea game-theoretically if everyone starts doing it.
The end result can be difficult to explain though. Because it means that not taking certain useful information into account leads to better decisions.
I think that, sometimes, we argue that a systemic bias is stronger than the statistics warrant. When sometimes the argument should be that sysyemic bias, statistically warranted or not is harmful.
(Note, my original comment was me making the mistake I argue against in this post)
I bet lawyers would get biased depending on their voice then.
You could have their sentences read by a computer though (you could do it today too and not let the lawyer be visible)
This should be doable by requiring the entire process be done remotely. Seems like a perfect time to try it out too! Even regional accent bias[1] can be removed by requiring unformatted text responses.
I'm not sure replacing accent bias with spelling and grammar and familiarity-with-IM-tools bias is an improvement. And we might overestimate our ability to spot lying in person, but it's a damn sight better than our ability to gauge it based on speed and coherence in typing responses...
Language becomes the new class marker. Even in strictly text-based media, people make snap judgments about who is worth listening to. It's based on spelling, complete sentences, punctuation, 1337speak or other dialects, even things as subtle as paragraph structure and who (and how) you cite. Back before Tinder became a thing, I knew several women (my now-wife among them) who would instantly ignore a man if he had spelling errors or improper grammar in his online dating profile.
Daniel Kahneman wrote once that if you really want an unbiased decision, you need to have a computer make it, because all humans are biased. Even then, the software ends up biased in the same way as its creators.
This is one of those veeery subtle class things. People don't realise how much they signal to establishment institutions that they don't belong through through things like how they dress. And because they don't realise it they don't even know they're being disadvantaged.
I've seen people turn up to social events with what is very clearly to an insider the 'wrong type' of suit (wrong fabric, wrong cut, buttoned incorrectly, wrong shirt, wrong tie, wrong type of shoes), with people silently judging them, but they would have absolutely no idea how much they stand out and how they're being disadvantaged by it.
Hard to tackle because it's all silent, the victims are oblivious, and there's not really any concrete action you can point to and criticise.
I mean, like, you would think the substance bro brings to the table would matter more than his duds 'n' presentation.
tech is somewhat famously informal; so replace the black hoodie or conference t-shirt with: a shirt, tie and button-down vest.
Despite perhaps looking nice, it would undoubtedly look very out of place, you might even not trust the person as much.
But we all have implicit biases, and it wouldn't be my gut feeling to trust a person who does not present as 'one of my group' like this.. even though I'm aware of the bias.
You can definitely dress in a way that doesn't look that much "lower" to an outsider but looks very wrong, and, gasp, poor to someone in-tune with tech worker fashion. So it's not just dressing too nice that does it, and hell, for that matter you can spend about as much as the cost of an on-sale Brooks Brothers suit buying a "tech shabby" outfit[0], with results that will definitely be appreciated by many your fellow tech workers, or simply overlooked by others in a way that Red-State-Working-Class or suit-and-a-tie won't.
[0] The aforementioned Red Wing Heritage boots are north of $300 for most models, full retail, and check out Arc'teryx and such for how expensive trail shoes can get ($150+, and they're not the most expensive brand), but even something like Danners are pretty pricey compared to what normal people buy for shoes; dropping $200 on a hoodie and rain layer is easy (again, go for expedition-clothing sorts of products to run up the price tag but also the tech worker cred—$300 just for a paper-thin rain jacket isn't even the top of the range); $80 merino wool hiking shirt ("I just love how it keeps me dry, but also I love talking about merino wool with other people who know how expensive it is"); and shit, jeans, sky's the limit, you can hit $200 on those while still just "buying more quality" and not even in just-paying-for-the-label territory yet.
The first ordered lunch and wine, in the most unconsciously casual, elegant way. The second then tried to imitate that manner, failing pathetically. I.e. the clothes didn't take away the upper class manner, nor bestow upper class mannerisms.
It's hard to fight your upbringing.
Put them on the floor of a blacksmith shop and you will see them get nervous.
Put them on the floor of a McDonalds in a questionable neighborhood -- that's where they'll get nervous.
Your comment reminded me of a similar experience of mine, but in reverse.
I was washing my hands in the restrooms at work, and decided to drink some water. I bent over, cupped my hand and started drinking.
At this moment, a guy went out of another stall and walked up to the sink next to me. He was some sort of manager, I guess, because he'd always be in a suit when I've seen him around the office before. When I got up, I saw him drinking water the same way I did, only he was failing to get much of it into his mouth. :-) Obviously, this was his first time.
People are really good at convincing themselves that things are just so.
I wonder with covid how this is being impacted?
I’ve been on one side of this, making half-conscious assumptions about other guests based on subtle sartorial faux-pas I’d have a tough time articulating, but this made me realize that I could just as easily be on the other side, and probably have been.
Nowadays I wear mostly t-shirts. The tech environment beat the button-down shirt out of me.
Somehow, I keep getting handed principal and director gigs and my peers are fine with me. I'm pretty sure it's OK, tbh.
I'd "dress up" for an interview, but that's really what I think of it as. I think I average wearing a suit once a year, and that's usually for a wedding, funeral, or similar formal occasion.
Other than that, I've replaced t-shirts with polo shirts. Maybe it's just the t-shirts I buy, but they usually shrink weirdly and I prefer the pique fabric used in most polos. I also appreciate the collar (for protecting my neck from sun) and being able to unbutton to cool off a bit in summer. They also tend to last longer.
But it's ok. I did learn in my upbringing that my only value will come from studying and skills and being useful. While rich upper class people are seen to have intrinsic value by belonging to the elite tribe, through a deep web of generation-bridging connections, us plebs must deliver and are only valuable as long as we produce.
Software development and CS are good areas for this, as it requires a lot of effort beyond theatricals and signaling and there is a lot of demand so the elite does pay us through their teeth because they have to, even if they resent our nature in their bones. Although there are definitely restrictive interpretations of "cultural fit" at certain tech companies. But even as an immigrant, work in tech is one of the best ways to a comfortable life. It can be materially comfortable, but integrating to the high circles is practically impossible. We must learn to embrace and find pride in who we are I guess and stop pretending. Being authentic may be a better choice even if it goes with sacrifices.
But overall, dismissing it as just assholes does not reach deep enough. It is an issue to grapple with and process. There is a silent glass ceiling for most of us and it's definitely even a lot lower than mine for many others.
A quick google seems to indicate that it has been used, but my gut tells me it’s not right.
Slightly ironic given the subject of parent’s comments.
Imagine if the person who said the phrase is ‘not right’ told you instead that you poop in the 'wrong' way?
Is there really a ‘wrong’ way to live or wrong way to do things? Or are there just different or alternative ways?
Yes to the former, some people go around murdering and stealing. I’m not being facetious, there’s a whole philosophy bent on subjectivism which is super interesting.
The point is that it may feel frustrating to feel excluded, but everyone feels that except multi-billionaires. I'd say therefore that after ensuring a Western middle-class level of comfort, the rest is mostly a mental game of accepting one's place, as there's always something higher that you can frustrate yourself over.
It would be interesting and possibly revealing to research the source class of tech workers to see how many don't come from a middle class background.
The only research I could find at short notice was this from the UK:
https://www.bcs.org/media/1652/social-mobility-report.pdf
The UK and the US both have poorer social mobility than Europe, so the figures in the US are likely to be even lower than here.
Depends on the country, and I'm not sure it's the same effect, ie not being able to pass culturally due to upbringing mismatch. Probably true for those growing up in very poor, crime ridden places where they can't learn the basic hygiene, punctuality etc needed for work.
As for social mobility, anecdotally, from who went where in my circles, tech and engineering are definitely higher in this than law and economics. Whatever is more concrete and harder to muddle the waters, is better suited for outsiders as a ladder. But the really big money is always in softer things but they a better gate-kept. I don't really think anyone tries to gatekeep the hard fields or trades too much. It's also why "the Polish plumber" is a meme. Easter European immigrants can take up such jobs and often reach a middle class income. I know many simple hardworking people who couldn't progress much due to cultural fit, but do make decent money in England/Germany etc. with physical work (like transporting stuff, setting up stages, cutting trees). Their kids do have a chance to enter the cultural middle class then.
Our choice of clothes communicates a great deal even if we don't want it to - there is no escape from this game.
You are right that you still cannot escape potential consequences of this particular game, but at least you can escape being actively involved in the game itself.
Of course, there are always consequences to everything in life, but you don't have to be an active participant in everyone else's games. Just play the games you want to play.
Now, the consequences to this game do seems to be quite real. My wife is more successful in certain respects than I am, I believe, in part because she is good at playing that particular game while I just can't be bothered to give a damn.
The only difference is your level of steps is just smaller.
But to be generous, maybe you know relatively well-dressed hobos.
That being said, it is also important to not look like you're trying too hard. Rolex and Omega are typically loud in the same way an "improper" suit is. They might hurt more than help, whereas Patek, Vacheron or Lange would be more impressive. Socialites who care enough about these things tend to have a certain affected air about them -- they (ostensibly, if not actually) appreciate them for fine craftsmanship rather signaling, which becomes a signal of its own. It would be an easy outsider error to assume that signal is about how expensive the watch is rather than which expensive watch it is.
Subtlety is everything. It is important not to look as though you're exerting effort to fit in. And you can afford to break from the ingroup convention if your mannerisms are otherwise "correct" and everyone in the group is aware of your status.
You can pick up old money relatively easily even if they're in a frumpy grandma sweater, even from a distance.
Edit: upon some reflection, perhaps my stereotypes are outdated and it's not really necessary for even old-money-rich young people to care about fancy watches and wines any more. I mean some base level knowledge is needed, but I have to remind myself that when I think they may have it worse in some respects I'm probably wrong. Why would they restrict themselves to rigid bullshit, if it's not pleasant? Probably the rules are more flexible today. Probably I'm totally blind to whatever the current actual class markers are as they are invisible to us.
The point is that these people don't care about fashion or watches or how much you spend on your clothes. They dress conventionally instead, which is a standard that only changes over the scale of a decade or so. The mistake outsiders make is to think that the point is to follow fashion and buy an expensive watch. That's why they don't fit in - they wear something fashionable.
Also, to defend the idea a bit, the idea of a dress code is exactly that purpose - so that you don't need to worry about what you're wearing or how much it cost or wether someone thinks it's fashionable or not.
That's how I've come to understand it. These wealthy types are not horophiles or sommeliers. They just casually appreciate beautiful craftsmanship & the taste of high quality alcohol- and who doesn't? Just look at how techies love machined metal laptop bodies, and the popularity of craft beer. The reason out-groups are quickly identified is because they cargo-cult the material things.
Right, although Patek, Vacheron or Lange are significantly more expensive than Rolex and Omega.
I mean, there are human beings who are making these ridiculously overpriced vanity watches day in, day out, in a miserable factory somewhere. All I see when I see these ads for Patek Phillippe, or similar, is a hopeless human doing work that they won't benefit from.
I wish rentier capitalism would end now, so we’d all live in a Commons-based peer production life where everyone was fed, instead of this ‘some people will buy a Ferrari and a rolex today, and some children will die from malnutrition’-world.
Luxury is a scam. The ultra rich (read: dominators) are just as anxious as the Precariat, scared to lose it all. Not to mention their kids are often ruined and unbearable people. [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maWdDl_OjlQ
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Edit: when I write "Patek or similar" I am really talking about any type of 'luxury good', like a Prada bag, or a cheaper-than-Rolex Michael Kors watch etc.
The people 'defending' Patek are missing my point (or I am missing them?) My point is that living in a world with artificial scarcity-creating systems is disturbing to me (Rentier Capitalism by Prof Guy Standing)[1]. It constantly surprises me how our priorities became the way they are with many of us in chains, and a few rolling around in a pool of blood-stained gold and diamonds. [2],[3]
[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...
As opposed to "a sweatshop in a low cost geography by some human drones", like another person who replied wrote?
You do know that the Global North is hoarding IP, and that another world of Commons-based peer production is possible, right? We could all be 'well paid craftsmen' if we shifted to that. In my eyes, you're showing an incredible privilege here, being aware of, and talking about, Patek watches.
Uppppper class. [1]
It's very uncharitable to assume that because you can't see the craft in something that it doesn't exist or is a scam. I couldn't taste the difference between two kinds of whisky if you put a gun to my head but it doesn't mean other people can't or that it's some kind of status game in disguise.
What the hell does that mean? 'human drones'
> It's very uncharitable to assume that because you can't see the craft in something that it doesn't exist or is a scam.
“I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.”
― Eduardo Galeano
What's the 'bad' kind?
> logic needn't go out the window in pursuit of an outlet for that anger
Many of these watches are Swiss. Switzerland is (or was) a known tax-haven...
It's our inability to connect the dots that baffles me sometimes. Where else do the wealthy elites get the kind of cash needed to buy these watches?
If we are going to avoid Switzerland because it's a tax haven then we should probably avoid doing any commerce with any country, including the one you probably are in now (unless you're in NZ or something).
And with regards to your update - no one is talking about faux luxury consumer goods here; in fact an argument can be made that the _only_ sustainable mode of consumerism is the kind practiced by these luxury watch makers if antrhung.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/style/international/what-...
Yes, we're part of the Global North. We have a relatively high standard of living now, due to not having blown ourselves up twice last century, before which we were considered poor in relation to our neighbours. Compare Heidi. (Iodine in salt may have helped immensely, too.)
[1] the brits may still be salty that our bankers did to them what Soros did to thailand. Someone's gotta make sure The Market stays efficient, innit?
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23975900
How are worker protections in your jurisdiction? Solidarity is an ideal invoked here even by the pro-free trade pro-small business centre-right party.
(One way our rich flex amongst themselves is on the Züri equivalent of Groundhog Day: they ride horses around a giant wooden snowman with explosives in its head after it's been set on fire. The faster it goes boom, the better the summer will be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reuJ8yVCgSM&t=58
One can tell the Zürchers are a bunch of capitalist pigs who'll be against the wall when the revolution comes[3] because although the holiday is celebrated on a Monday evening, some of them don't even get the day off.)
[3] at the end of Cold War I, we learned we'd had a secret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay-behind unit active on our soil. This was a scandal, because we are not a Nato member. Thank you, UK!
But luxury handbags and other "fashion" items are inexcusable, because they are literally assembled in sweat shops by slave labour and then sold for four/five/six/seven figure price tags to vulgar stupid people.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90279693/did-a-slave-make-your-s...
The point of this kind of luxury isn't utility or quality - it's pure status display, combined with narcissistic indifference to the fate of the unfortunates whose work is being displayed so ostentatiously.
A modern minivan is faster than a classic Porsche in virtually every metric. That doesn't lessen the appeal of the Porsche; speed isn't the point.
I don't really have a dog in the race when it comes to whether or not such veblen goods should exist. I agree they are often only sought after as status objects, but I also can't discount the possibility that some people really do appreciate their craftsmanship.
> I can tell you that the cost of a Rolex is well worth it, from the particular point of view of 'access' to the guys with watches and hey let's talk about them . The watch club. The $40 fake I had was good enough, because who is going to unwind someone else's winder at a social gathering? Similarly other Veblen goods like a Lamborghini (rent one!) that a guy talked about as a conversation piece on a Reddit AMA a day or two ago. Whatever someone is deeply interested in, they will glom onto you if you show anything like authentic interest.
A fancy watch might earn you some respect from the tiny subset of rich folks that are themselves watch affectionados, but the respect will come from your depth of knowledge about watch construction, brands and history. The fact that you own one is largely inconsequential.
If you really want to cheat the system, skip buying the watch yourself. If you study the fancy watches, you can compliment folks on their watch, and get the benefits of appearing both knowledgable and friendly.
The wealthy don't value things you can buy with money. Spending money will not impress them.
I saw Americans seriously arguing that ads are a legit means of brainwashing. My bet would be that she was a walking advertisement and any rentable image would fly.
People are generally quick to complain about bias, for whatever reason, while hypocritically guilty of bias just the same. As a result most people would be incredibly unhappy in institutional conventions with bias objectively removed because the resultant outcome would be wildly different than they intuitively anticipate. The most interesting part about that is that it’s identifiable and measurable.
"Finally, it may be possible that a third variable affects the relationship of attractiveness and criminal accusations/activities. Socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and developmental advantages (e.g., nutrition, schooling) might be such factors.[29]"
Your physical attractiveness and the way you dress can both signal information about you. Rich & powerful men with status tend to marry attractive women, even if the men are not always attractive themselves. After a couple generations, rich & powerful families with status tend to have more attractive families. They can also afford better nutrition and educational opportunities. Dressing nice and fashionably indicates that you care about your appearance. While a few people can pull off the idea of someone being such a genius that they can't be bothered to care about their appearance, the general trend is that people that can't be bothered to care about their appearance also can't be bothered to care as much about other things, like preparing for work.
It would be nice if we could get rid of any attractiveness biases. I sure would be angry if I was disadvantaged in a court case because I'm not attractive. I would be extra angry if I was disadvantaged because my lawyer wasn't attractive. I have a feeling that just blindfolding the jurors or blocking their view would cause them to miss out on other important things like being able to see faces and reactions during testimony. At least if we know about the bias we can work to fight it in other ways. Getting people to "think slow" sounds like some Malcom Gladwell popular B.S. that has probably been debunked, but it's probably better than nothing, and any lawyer can probably work at getting juries to think a little harder.
IIRC this is a common misconception. The son of a traditionally handsome man isn't necessarily going to get all of the traditionally handsome male features from his dad; he might get some of his traditionally beautiful mother's traditionally beautiful female features. Genetics is a crapshoot like that.
Even if genetics are a crapshoot, I'd expect offspring of rich and powerful families to be, on average, more attractive than the median for their area from these environmental factors.
...unless they inbreed (which a lot of european royalty did), in which case it works in reverse. Also, income mobility probably prevents this from having significant effects. According to [1] if your father is in the top pentile, you only have a 36% chance of remaining in the top pentile. Repeat this over 5 generations, and you only have a 0.6% chance of staying in the top pentile.
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_econ... page 4, table 1
Honestly, that might be an advantage too. Humans think they’re good at these things, but this sort of judgement gives plenty of opportunity for more bias to creep in.
Meanwhile, my own attorney looked not too far from what you'd expect to see if someone had entered a garbage dumpster circa 1969, and emerged the mourning of the court date. And to this day, I have never been convicted of any crimes.
Everything is done by typed text, with no humans visible. Jurors just sit isolated in a booth reading the text, or have the same person read out all the text to them.
Lawyers would be against it, but everyone would benefit from a society that decides guilt based on how convincing an argument is and not how convincing the person saying the argument is.
"Look at that man, he is guilty." Is not very convincing when the person who is supposedly guilty has never been seen.
Is it to make you feel better or to improve society?
Personally I'd go for improving society because as fun as lynchings are we probably shouldn't kill minorities we don't like.
In trial law, the end goal is to win the hearts and minds of a jury to believe you. Your end deliverable is a set of speeches and presentations to a group of strangers making decisions about ethics. In programming, your tools are your IDE, terminal, manuals, libs, etc. In law, your tools are all the different flavors of rhetoric. Some of these are pure logic-based rhetoric, but many appeal to human emotion and establishing trust and proving character. In the end, the jury needs to trust the evidence and arguments presented by the attorney are real and honest. He always explained to me that humans make lots of inferences about people based on their personal presentation--which is true. E.g. "he put a lot of care into polishing those shoes--I can infer that he did the same when collecting and investigating the evidence" Or, "that lawyer dresses really flashy with cheap clothes and fake gold watches to make it appear he's something he's not--maybe he's bullshitting his arguments too."
He explained it even extended to courthouse design. He'd say "There's a reason courthouses are big, imposing, and serious-looking. It's important that people behave themselves seriously and thoughtfully here; decisions are being made every day that can dispense justice to lives of the wronged and potentially ruin people's lives too."
He was right--when it comes to law, for absolute certain. Most of his trials were defending Fortune 500 companies (for good stuff--stuff he believed in--protecting them against other parties defrauding and legitimately wronging them). His record was something like 300-2. He was a legend and I miss him.
But I'm still going to spin up clusters with barbecue sauce on my shorts.
The phenomena might be general - looking good is one big part of it, but people in certain roles/work functions are expected to have a certain appearance.
So being shabbily dressed and having stubble is mostly irrelevant here. Maybe you were just much better looking than the other (poor) bloke.
The point I'm trying to make is in addition to that there might be other forms of appearance-based biases: for ex maybe a scientist is expected to project an image of being nerdy, or detached-ly pensive, etc
I am always astonished by how much we humans mix how moral is someone and how horny that someone makes us.
And it works both ways. To tell someone that you are not attracted to them is perceived as a judgement of their value in society and morality. When we actually decide if we are horny for someone in just 1 second from a picture and zero knowledge about that person.
Many years ago, I worked for a company that hired the hot one instead of the competent one. And it was amazing to see the twisted justification. But, I believe that the hiring manager was not aware and was convinced that the decision was based on the bogus conclusions.
> Some researchers are skeptical that real jurors will have the same biases as the studies in simulated juries.
I would expect even worse bias when you do not feel observed and you are not a student that may have knowledge about the concept of biased decisions.
It's all too common for people to forget that we are still very much sub-Saharan apes underneath our Calvin Klein suits.
What we find attractive has formed through eons of evolution, and we retain the preferences of those who managed to leave more descendants.
That's not the same as being more intelligent etc, but it's not completely unrelated either.
"Do you think this just happens?"
It comes more easily to some than others, but an hour at the gym is an hour at the gym, whether you enjoy it or not.
I say this as someone who mostly doesn't do the work, but I have plenty of friends and colleagues (and a spouse) who mostly do. It's effort and money and time and stress for them.
The same is true for money. It's still work to turn a million dollars into two million, but it's not anywhere close to the work required to turn a dollar into a million dollars. But nobody wants to be successful because of a lottery, so they'll argue that their father gave them "a small loan of a million dollars" but they made it big themselves.
The luck part isn't primarily about genetics [1], it's about whether you enjoy (or at least don't hate) the routines necessary to be attractive.
For instance: my wife sticks to a strict diet because she doesn't like having to make decisions about food. If you're lucky enough to be wired like her (I'm writing this next to an empty pizza box...), you can hit any goal weight and stay there. Our bathroom is covered in lotions and creams that she spends an hour applying before bed every night. I could not tell you their names, to say nothing of their purposes. She goes to the gym every day except for planned rest days, and does a workout routine that was decided on weeks ahead of time. I maybe go for a jog, if I remember to and I'm feeling up to it.
I've tried copying what she does, and I can't even stick to it for a day. But most women I know do some version of this, and all of the really attractive men do, too.
[1] sure, it is possible to really lose the genetic lottery, but unless you would've been a 19th century circus freak, the bottleneck is probably how hard you're trying, not your genetics
I'd also argue that there is a feedback loop, i.e. attractive people are told they're attractive starting at a young age, and so a large part of their self-esteem comes from being attractive, so they feel more pressure to do the things you mention, i.e. skin care, working out.
One of the advantages of not starting out on the "is attractive -> gets self-esteem from attractiveness -> tries to be more attractive" cycle is that as you get older you don't feel like you're losing anything. It's no fun when you're young, but that's a small minority of most people's lives.
I always wonder to what extent that attribution to slow evolutionary processes is true. There were several selective bottlenecks in our ancestry, and during historic times (from which we descend) most marriages were arranged, with attractiveness playing only a very small factor. Even in modern times, only a small percentage of the population had the luxury of breeding with a partner that we consider nowadays highly attractive.
Then there's the fact that up to 80% of marriages have been between first cousins or closer, which would would actually cause unattractive features.
So how come we think that sexual attraction is an evolutionarily shaped mechanism
There is also the feedback loop of "grooming", where, just like bees select a random bee to be groomed as a queen, humans are positively reinforcing a specific set of humans for reasons that have more to do with mass psychology than actual attraction. E.g. kings and queens are groomed as leaders and rulers, eventhough they are probably the most inbred and flawed genetic stock
Either because of cheating, or of sexual rites, or because of rape...
The Greek mythology are full of heroes descended from gods yet are raised by human kings married to their mothers, after all.
Attractiveness is a trait that signals health, not intelligence/social skill/etc.
That's why we evolved to desire attractive people.
It has nothing to do with being a marker for intelligence.
Genetic fitness means anything that results in more grandchildren in the end. Physical health is a big factor, sure, but so is intelligence and social skills.
Maybe this is in part a linguistic disagreement. By "attractive" I don't just mean "looks good in a photo", but any factor that attracts a partner.
Yes, it's obvious that we shouldn't base our opinions on appearance or sexual attractiveness, but it really shouldn't surprise you that that's how things usually play out. Such reactions come from a much deeper part of our biology. The fact that we can sometimes think past those reactions is much more surprising, imo.
I don't think this is about 'horniness', or even sexual attraction to the person, because this works across gender and sexual preference lines. Straight men are biased in favor of attractive men, even though they don't sexually desire them.
It is deeper than just sexual attraction.
In fact I'd say the more horny inducing the less appealing personalities, less moral, less altruistic, less competent, etc I'd perceive someone. Not saying that's good of me but if we're saying attractiveness causes a boost well, as a man, for me, I'm generally attracted to the nice girl next door type, not the sexy temptress type. The sexy temptress type makes me horny but it doesn't remotely make me feel like I should trust her, give her more opportunities, etc... I don't think I'm alone in that. To give a more blunt example, I'm less likely perceive someone as having those positive traits who is a stripper or porn star even though they make me horny. It's the person that makes me feel like I want to spent quality time with that I'm more likely to perceive all those qualities, not the person I want a one night stand with.
In the story, a highly-targeted brain treatment exists that can make it so that one is unable to perceive physical attractiveness. The story explores the ethics of such a treatment.
Here is a pdf, but if you like it, I highly recommend supporting the author and getting both of his collections, "Stories of Your Life and Others" and "Exhalation". You won't regret it.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vSPLnv...
I enjoyed Exhalation but was not aware of the other collection.
SPOILERS BELOW (though knowing doesn't really detract from the story)
In the story, one of the central discussions is the debate to make the procedure mandatory for students at a college campus. The procedure is non-invasive and reversible, similar tot an MRI or something.
Fearing that this sort of public debate will spread, a cosmetics lobbying firm (who wants to maintain the status quo) publishes a video with a persuasive counter-argument.
It is later revealed that the video had been manipulated by software "capable of fine-tuning paralinguistic cues in order to maximize the emotional response evoked in viewers. This dramatically increases the effectiveness of recorded presentations."
Some people get a further brain tweak to mitigate this effect.
Should we consider a system where the judge and jury do not see the defendant (and suer if applicable) in the pursuit of objectivity? I think the bias towards attractive people is quite obvious in so many spheres of life. For employment, for the way people treat you as a customer, colleague or day-to-day, for housing, etc. We are actively fighting many -ism in (rational) societies, but "unattractivism" is more taboo. I am not sure what the solution would be at societal level. My feeling is that a societal movement for this inclusion is more unlikely than the other ones, but that would require to acknowledge an implicit scale of attractiveness which is divisive in the first place (as opposed to gender, sexual orientation, ethicity, religion, etc which are either obvious or self-decided). But I could be misreading the situation obviously.
The judicial system is different, and with radically impactful consequences, you do not have to eliminate human bias (which probably isn't even possible), you just have to make the decision-maker blind just like peer-reviewed papers. While we can't really hide identity for employment or housing, but a judge and juree do not need to know the name or see the person. To go further, please could be read by impartial narrator which would also take care of emotional bias (should a good actor have a more lenient sentence?). In a way, the justice system should seek ultimate objectivity for the sake of fairness. On the flipside however, it would have a dehumanizing effect on the deciders to have zero connection with the convicted and perhaps lead to an increase in sentencing lengths, which I'm not particularly in favor of.
Having trouble finding a source for it, however. Anyone?
Also, plenty in the legal system is already done on the basis of transcripts. This isn't an all-or-nothing prospect.
1. One of the trials was an underage rape case and there was essentially no physical evidence. Mainly all we had to go on was 3 police interviews (2 from the alledged victim, one from the accused). As a jury, we relied on those videos to determine who we felt was telling the truth and the trust worthiness of what they were saying. I'm not saying this was a good thing necessarily, just an observation that this is what we did. I'd like to see the results with a parallel jury that relied only on written transcripts etc.
2. The judge actually gave us guidance at the beginning of both trials that in addition to what witnesses said, how they appeared to us (their demeanour) was also evidence that we could use in assessing the trust-worthiness of what they said. My understanding was that we should use our general life experience that we had acquired in our day to day living to assess the evidence of the witness. I guess there are good sides (eg. intuition based on non-verbal communication/body language) and bad sides (eg. biases) to using this approach.
I thought that the hard part with persecuting (adult) rape is that the physical act is the same as sex - so there’s no “obvious” proof that the crime even happened (like a dead body), only different interpretations of why sex happened.
That goes away if it’s statutory rape, where even just sex is evidence of crime.
She was forced (she was not able to choose) to take pregnancy rejection medication but refused/declined to have a physical examination/rape kit done (she had a choice in this). So essentially there was no physical evidence (in the trial at least) that sex had ever occurred. Also, the trial was taking place around 6 years after the alledged incident.
What we did have was a very detailed, consistent, plausible, and compelling recount of events leading up to, during, and after the rape from the 13 year old victim in a police interview about a month after it occured and also another interview around 2 years later. Watching the interviews, and based on the type emotion she showed at particular points, the language (including body language) she used to describe the events etc it was difficult to not believe her, it was in fact heart breaking to watch and listen to.
I guess my point is that all that "soft" information that we received from the video recorded interview was indeed information that we used to assess whether we thought she was telling the truth or not or whether she was coached or was making it up, for whatever reason. We were in fact instructed by the judge to use that information to make our assessment whether there was reasonable doubt or not.
I'm not sure how you separate this type of information from other information we also receive eg. the physical attractiveness of the accused and defendant and how the legal system can remove this type of bias. Based on other comments here, I'm also no longer sure about whether we, as a jury, should be using that soft information, and I'd love to see results from studies about how juries assess evidence when it is presented in different ways as suggested here.
Though it would be interesting to have a double blind of a normal case + transcript case and see the role of bias or even intuition.
It's unfortunate that appearances are always so important, but it's definitely ingrained deeply into reality. Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect
Saying that is normative, not descriptive, especially if you recognize the phenomenon is real.
Anyway, what is it unfortunate?
Hackers hack. Finding an investment with a 1,000x ROI is a great hack.
Additionally I wonder what bald Elon looks like. Jeff Bezos put on some muscle and looks a lot better afterwards despite losing his hair
He was also 6'2".
Secondly, I think Elon's role is a lot more outward-facing than Bezos's role, and that would probably have been the case even if Bezos was more attractive, so I doubt the procedures would have had as much an effect on Bezos's success as they may have on Musk's.
But he would be hated a lot less, IMO.
Both Gates and Zuck had substantial backing from their parents from the start.
Bill Gates was given a huge gift horse via nepotism, in the IBM DOS contract.
Zuck isn't a bad looking fellow.
"According to Fire in the Valley, he also reportedly told Gates that when IBM CEO John Opel heard Microsoft would get the contract, he said "Oh is that Mary Gates' boy's company?" since Opel and Bill Gates' mother served together on the national board of the United Way."
The way it's worded makes it sound like they already had the deal aside from any nepotism, but perhaps the CEO's approval sealed it / ensured terms were kept fair.
Since I saw his presentation on Starship, I have started considering the “polish” of a presentation, and the “skill” of public speaking, to be a negative signal (the speaker wants us to focus on the form, instead of on the content).
Musk often just says what comes to mind. He clearly doesn't often rehearse or sometimes even prepare. He comes across as human and relatable. Not just some dude in a suit that has a team of secretaries of lawyers and hasn't had to flush his own toilet in 20 years.
Yet our current society tends to consider it completely fair that success should be a function of IQ.
IQ is no less a given than face symmetry. Grit too. Nothing's "fair".
IQ has a pretty strong correlation with the quality of the work you can produce. Higher IQ is generally beneficial to the solution of any task. If you are trying to go to Mars or find a vaccine for COVID-19, you probably want very smart people in the room. Hell, you want smart people even if you are building yet another ecommerce website.
The same is hardly true for beauty. Excluding beauty-specific jobs, skills and experience should always prevail over look.
IQ: unfair to the individual, justified by society well being Beauty: unfair to the individual, no particular advantage for society
No, it's not. Using any criteria that creates substantial disadvantage to a protected class is illegal if you can't show a sufficiently close nexus to bona fide job requirements/performance, which happened to be found to be the case with the IQ test that was adopted as a direct replacement for overt racial discrimination in the Duke Energy case. But the legal rule that comes from that case is not “IQ tests are illegal”, and in fact IQ tests are used in a number of places in hiring (including, as became notorious in another case where the practice was upheld, being used where a score above a threshold was disqualifying in a particular police department.)
The switch you've made here is between "success" and criminal punishment.
I remember a very left forum in which someone bemoaned that one out of four homeless are women, and that's why we should care about homelessness.
Overall, I have begun to look at which privileges are examined and which are ignored as the real three card monte.
That sounds like an extreme mischaracterization. The concern about homeless women is the extra suffering the endure at the hands (and other parts) of homeless (and other) men.
Much worse is the horrific (and never retracted) Washington Post article fretting that murder at work is a female epidemic because even though men are murdered _more_ often than women at work, men die so much in other ways that murders of men aren't important*.
It was absolutely gobsmacking to read the utter disregard for men's lives.
"more men are murdered on the job than women. But that's because [450%] more men are killed on the job overall."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/27/murde...
Do you treat people unequally if you know they are smarter? What if someone else told you they were smart? If they have a high IQ, would that matter to you? Based on which college they graduated from? If they work 16 hours a week? What about 16 hours a day?
Attractiveness is an indicator just like any other [1]. It's just a reality.
Attractive people have the discipline and passion to put hard work into diet and exercise and makeup. They have good vision and taste for fashion.
One thing is an (un)conscious bias favorable towards handsome/attractive people, another is a system that historically thought that one group of people was inferior and had less rights. Obviously I'm not justifying this bias, and I think that society has an important role in reinforcing it, so we should try to stop it, especially in the justice system.
I also wonder if the WFH revolution will reduce the advantage a tall, handsome guy has over a more productive, short guy.
It also implies that if we solved height discrimination there would be a lot more female CEOs.
Maybe a better way to put it, an 'average height female is more likely to be in management than a below-average height male'.
Both are valid points to make, but you seem to be missing parent poster's.
The issue is not crudely height, it's height relative to gender and it's actually pretty straight forward.
A 5 foot 6 woman is not going to be hugely punished for her height, whereas a 5 foot 6 man will definitely be.
Isn't that in itself gender discrimination?
We know that on average Asian men are shorter than black men. If someone made the same compensation for the difference, what would you call it?
We've just had a Supreme Court decision saying employers can't discriminate against trans employees. If the same 5'6" employee gets a promotion by presenting as female that they don't get by presenting as male, what does that imply there?
If I was to make a WAG as to why height discrimination seems to affect women less, consider footwear. 3" heels close half the perceived height gap between men and women on average -- not all of it, but enough to confer an advantage at the same original height.
https://dqydj.com/height-percentile-calculator-for-men-and-w...
Based on my life experiences in the US, I would not believe half of all adult males were below 5ft 6in.
That's because they're not. The average height of adults in the US is 5'6" and half of them are women.
Except that our discriminative faculties never engage in a 'single source' of discrimination. We only think in absolute terms, we never act that way.
We engage with gender bias all day long, likewise height bias.
At the same time.
Average adult female height in the US is 5’4”, so 5’6” is noticeably above average, almost as much as it is below average for an adult male (average 5’6”.)
https://dqydj.com/height-percentile-calculator-for-men-and-w...
The average is probably even higher if you restrict your data to those who would even be eligible for CEO level positions (higher educated, coming from wealthy families, etc).
I think 5ft 9in would be on the short end of the men I know, especially white collar professionals.
US male adult average height is 5'9" per CDC, for females it's 5'3.6”. hence my statement that 5'6 is nearly as much above average for an adult female in the US as it is below average for a male.
Source? I've wondered about this but am not aware of any actual studies.
That's simultaneously a very interesting and somewhat plausible claim, which is why I'd love it if someone did an actual analysis of it.
Is there a public dataset available of S&P 500 CEOs of the past two decades, tagged with height and gender? I might take a stab at a simple analysis myself if there is.
It basically does.
Suppose the average height for a female CEO is also 6'. (I can't find the actual number anywhere, Google seems to be useless for this sort of thing these days.) In that case women ~6' are over-represented as CEOs, even more than the men of the same height, QED.
Suppose it's less than that, e.g. 5'9". In that case women ~5'9" are over-represented, or less under-represented, as CEOs compared to men of the same height, otherwise the overall average wouldn't be 6'.
Having more data would tell you some interesting things like whether and to what extent it's true at any given height, but it implies that it's true for at least some heights and possibly all of them.
Can we make attractiveness a protected class?
The thing is, with kids that young, they were very transparent about their feelings toward the attractive teacher "She's so pretty! She's so nice! I really liked her." It was classic halo effect stuff.
Thanks, being ugly sucks, we know.
If true, it means that this bias could be fairly straightforward to correct in theory, though in practice I doubt people would accept the necessity or fairness of such corrections.
I'd guess it's because conviction is binary, so there's very little signal for "guilty vs very guilty", "innocent vs maybe innocent"
For example, in the US at least, a lot of people consider having nice, straight teeth attractive. But getting there requires good dental care and perhaps orthodontics such as braces which can be expensive. Thus, not only are straight teeth attractive, they can be a signal of socio-economic status.
Another thing is that life situations alter attractiveness. For example, I have seen people who were attractive once, but after a few years of using meth, they would not be described as attractive by a lot of people.
Also, in at least one of the studies, photos of the criminal were used to judge attractiveness. These may have been mugshots. However, how someone looks on mugshots can be significantly different if one has been living on the street for sometime vs living in a wealthy home, and their lawyer arranged their client to turn themselves in to the police.
Being "beautiful" or "ugly" can be a pro, it can be a con, it can lead to jealousy. Awkwardness, feeling low self-esteem, confidence, tension, etc. A lot of it is subjective.
We're animals, and we often forget that fact. We try to normalize as much as possible to remove these biases (thankfully), but it's completely impossible to remove outright.
I'm waiting for the day we have Matrix-like capabilities and can change our avatar on a whim. :)
But even then, a lot depends on judges' and juries' emotional variance throughout the day. Did they have a meal that gave them indigestion?
It's imperfect.
This is in everything.
That said, you don't want to be too attractive - rather, nice symmetry, good proportions, healthy looking, but generally not attractive like a model.
Height and even girth for men, but only height for women as weight is a negative for them (I'm loathed to find the source for this, sorry).
One of the only fields where 'well turned out' folks are naturally viewed with scepticism ironically is software! Either by way of reason (ie nobody who spends that much time looking good has spent enough time on algorithms!) or by jealousy (ie it's unfair that this attractive person is as smart as me!) I think we tend to love 'true geek' flair. It's probably mostly a healthy bias ...
Edit: I should add 'nice teeth'. Seriously, 'nice teeth' are the ultimate mark of class in an ostensibly classless society. Like in the UK, the oddly huge variety of accents immediately projects one's origin (and thus class, however totally unfair it seems to be that way, at very least subconsciously), 'perfect teeth' are generally uncommon in nature, more likely it means one's parents could afford the $5K in braces etc. for their kids, which is still not entirely widespread. It's not something I think we think of consciously, but my gosh 'nice teeth' make a really 'nice smile' and it has such a big social impact without us ever really realising it.
Court rulings depend partly on when the judge last had a snack https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2011/04/14/...
The paper: Extraneous factors in judicial decisions www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1018033108
So do an RCT please.
Whenever I see correlation assumed to be causation I like to wonder why they excluded causation in the other direction. In this case, maybe sentencing someone heavily is hard on their looks, and we know once you go to jail you’re likely to reoffend, and that continues, until you have the correlation you observe, perhaps?
If both are true, it's fascinating. We should then research the mechanism that makes judgements more fair, and see if we can't change the way the sentence is determined to match that.
It could be that the investigation of guilt is very carefully pursued, with a lot of rules, a lot of evidence.
It could also be that for 'most cases' the outcome is actually fairly straight foward?
Also, once someone is found to be 'guilty' - then we are free to 'loathe and pity then'. Whereas guilt/innocence is mostly a black and white affair, subject to objective guidance ... the sentencing may not be, which is to say, it's maybe hard to reference 'what is a little and what is a lot' in any given scenario, so are bias are more likely to run free.
Another irony: Virtually every object of value in modern world is made by scientists and engineers but guess who is million times more worshiped, popular, paid, followed, protected and cared about: actors! Most actors simply act out a scene someone else designed, someone else shot, someone else wrote, someone else directed. None of the behind the scene people matter much or even get fraction of a credit because they are often not as attractive as these puppets to put on the screen. That's humanity for you in its raw form.
I can imagine myself designing, writing and shooting a scene, but I can't imagine acting it well (let's say on Antony Hopkins level). I have maybe the 5-10% of the expression range necessary for that. It's a talent and a skill, possibly more rare than the ones which "just" require lots of brains and an eye for aesthetics.
Not really. It just seems that way because of the a tiny, highly visible slice at the top of the field. The 2018 median pay for an actor was $20.43/hr, there were only 64,500 of them working in 2018, and there's about 1% projected 10 year growth in the field.
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/entertainment-and-sports/mobile/acto...
The median pay for a software developer in 2018 was $50.77/hr, there's almost 1.4 million of them, and there's 21% projected 10 year growth in the field.
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
> None of the behind the scene people matter much or even get fraction of a credit because they are often not as attractive as these puppets to put on the screen.
Directors, Producers, Screenwriters, and Composers, among others, often are as prominently, or nearly so, credited as stars, paid quite well, and quite well known; definitely moreso than non-star actors.
And star actors very often have a much bigger impact on productions than just presenting what others have written, actively shaping their characters and often other parts of the production.
Could some of those correlate with things relevant in court? Prior criminal history, for example? (That explicitly and deliberately does factor into sentencing, where the main difference is reported.) Are they controlled for? The article doesn't use the word "control" or "history". I only see a couple of studies about mock juries, where the subjects are merely given a photograph and a packet to read, which does control for everything (except for details that the subject's imagination is left to fill in).
Mostly a joke, but also completely true. We are physical beings in a visual world. The way you present yourself matters.
But occasionally, I suspect these reasons become convenient excuses to go with the younger, more attractive, reasonably-qualified candidate.
And physical attractiveness can vary by setting. Dressing business professional helps attractiveness in a court room, but if you were dressed like a stripper, you might still be highly attractive, but cause a negative perception in the court room.
There's always sociocultural dependencies and personal preferences, but beauty can certainly be quantified. Facial symmetry, body proportions, etc.
Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but only up to a point. There are some markers that, when you increase or improve them, objectively increase beauty.
Would love to know how these studies measured it.
> They gathered a group of police officers and students to rate the attractiveness of over 2000 criminals. A scale of 1 - 5 was used and their ratings were mostly similar.
Being unattractive can be superficial, or point to deeper issues. In general it'll hold you back to the degree that it points to deeper issues, because people mostly won't care if your face is a bit asymmetrical if they can depend on you and you are pleasant to be with.
And was charisma considered as a variable?
(I'm just thinking of the courtroom scene in "My Cousin Vinny". Joe Pesci is not conventionally good looking but has a personality that is very persuasive)
For all the variables, check table 1 of the following for "Zero-order Pearson’s correlations between facial appearance and health, with the corresponding p-values and sample sizes":
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5290736/
If you want more example for a given variable, for example the effect of adiposity (we know it's quadratic), read one of the original papers:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6308207/
All this is well known now, as the first study was about 22 years ago:
Perrett, D. I., Lee, K. J., Penton-Voak, I., Rowland, D., Yoshikawa, S., Burt, D. M., … Akamatsu, S. (1998). Effects of sexual dimorphism on facial attractiveness. Nature, 394(6696), 884–887. doi:10.1038/29772
An interesting point on attractiveness in the job market is that people who are extremely unattractive tend to also perform very well. It’s mildly unattractive people who do the worst. My pet theory is extremely unattractive people have to work their asses off to make enough money to be sexually competitive in any way.
If people notice you, they'll next notice if you are competent or not.
I'd guess extremely unattractive people don't find sexual mates regardless of wealth.
https://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/orsp_shahani-denning_spring03.pd...
In an ideal world, we could simply uncheck these biases and do blind promotions and detach a person's work output from his or her face, but it doesn't work like that. Even worse attractiveness is subjective and thus hard to control for. You can usually identify racism because the person will have traits that puts him/her in that category. It's much harder for subjective beauty.
TLDR: Probably yes, but don't expect it to go away anytime soon.