The relationship between IQ and face value

? How does the relationship between appearance and intelligence affect social people-judge people by their appearances, which makes sense?

what is the biggest headache for recruiters in these employment seasons? It's not a massive resume, it's not an unintelligible self-introduction, but those registration photos that have been over-decorated by computer software!

Some people lament that it is no longer easy to see "original" photos on job seekers' resumes. Among them, there is the vanity of job seekers, but to a greater extent, it is tired by social culture, and the recruiter is also to blame.

An interesting question follows: Since when do people tend to judge others' abilities, even their intelligence? This is contrary to the popular folk saying, such as "God is fair to people, and if he gives you more beauty, he will give you less wisdom".

In fact, the relationship between appearance and intelligence has aroused the interest of the scientific community many years ago. There are two relationships to be solved in this riddle:

First, what is the relationship between appearance and intelligence?

second, how do the general public view this relationship?

who says smart people are usually ugly?

A recent study by Zen Island Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science, shows that the IQ of beautiful children is 12.4 higher than that of their peers. There is a growing voice in academic circles: the saying that "smart people are usually ugly" is out of date.

In the past 1 years, many researchers have been eager for beauty and wisdom. At first, scientists tried to explore whether it is really possible to judge a person's IQ by his appearance.

in p>1918, a researcher in Ohio, USA, did an experiment. More than a dozen portrait photos of children wearing the same clothes were presented to a judging panel composed of doctors and teachers. Members of the panel were required to judge and rank the intelligence of children according to the portrait photos-from the most intelligent to the most stupid. The result of this subjective judgment will be compared with the result of objective intelligence test. A few years later, a psychologist in Pittsburgh, Germany, did a similar experiment, using portraits of 69 employees in department stores. Since then, many scientists have done research similar to the above experiments.

their conclusion is almost the same: people can judge the IQ of individuals by their ugly looks. However, scientists have never been able to figure out what information is conveyed in those photos.

The researcher in Ohio said that some of his subjects were "deeply influenced by pleasing appearance or smiles, but it is worth noting that some of them think that smiles represent wisdom, while others think that smiles represent imbecility or mental deficiency (in other words, everyone's understanding of smiles may be completely different)." Researchers in Pittsburgh believe that perhaps the mystery of wisdom is not hidden in the "luster of eyes."

When researchers were puzzled by this question, edward thorndike, a psychologist at Columbia University, made another related discovery. In 192, Thorndike put forward the theory of "halo effect". According to this theory, when we are asked to describe the diverse qualities of others, we tend to "enlarge a certain characteristic of the object of description and affect our view of the whole person". Subsequent studies have proved that the halo effect can be derived from a photo: if a person is handsome, we are likely to infer that he is also smarter, more sociable, more aware of accidents and more reasonable.

in this way, there are three related conclusions. First of all, this phenomenon does exist, and people will judge the intelligence of others by their looks; Secondly, when we judge people by their looks, we often think that the ugliness of looks is positively related to the low intelligence. In other words, we always think that only talents have looks, but no talents have no looks; Finally, there is some truth in this tendency.

So, it's really beauty and wisdom as partners and ugliness and stupidity as partners?

The latest research result comes from Zen Island Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at London School of Economics and Political Science. His research data were taken from the British National Child Development Study (including 17, people born in 1958) and the American National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health (including 21, people born around 198), both of which recorded the looks and intelligence test scores of the people in the stalls. Kanazawa found that the IQ of beautiful children is 12.4 higher than that of children of the same age. When he controlled factors such as family background, nationality, height and figure, this relationship still held.

Kanazawa believes that the halo effect is not the "cognitive illusions" presumed by many academic schools, but more like an accurate interpretation of the world. "Beautiful people make people feel smarter because they do."

not all studies have reached the same answer as Kanazawa. A recent study based on the yearbook album of a high school in Wisconsin in 1957 found that for boys, appearance has nothing to do with intelligence; But for girls, there is a positive correlation between looks and IQ. The study of Brandeis University in the United States noticed that the so-called positive correlation conclusion seems to be only applicable to people with poor looks. In other words, people with beautiful looks may be very stupid, but ugly people are unlikely to be smart.

However, none of the above voices can answer the results of a poll conducted by Interpreter website in 211. The website is voted "Question of the Year" by netizens every year. The most frequently asked question in that year is, "Why is wisdom always out of touch with beauty but often accompanied by ugliness?" "If the halo theory is really established, why do so many netizens ask such questions and why do they have such an impression?" "In life, we are familiar with the typical nerds who are not good-looking but have superior intelligence; On the other hand, how to explain the images of ladies and gentlemen with beautiful faces but empty heads that appear on TV? Is the United States and wisdom in harmony? "

Some people say that Sartre is short, wears a pair of big-rimmed glasses and has severe strabismus. "I can't even judge whether (my face) is beautiful or ugly," he asked a character to say so in his early work Nausea. "I think it's because I'm ugly that I say this." The sage Socrates had sparse hair, big nostrils, wide eyes and a big belly. Beethoven, a musician, is not only ugly, but also stinks. The face of American President Abraham Lincoln became "so ugly and beautiful" under Whitman's poem.

One explanation holds that the reason why "ugly genius" has left countless impressions in the long history of China and foreign countries is because it is "abnormal", so it is impressive, but it is not the majority in quantity.

Those who support this theory take high flyers, a famous Hollywood school, as a typical example: natalie portman, for example, "starred in Star Wars and This Killer is Not Too Cold, completed high school with a credit score of 4., obtained a bachelor's degree in psychology from Harvard University, and completed postgraduate studies at Hebrew University, and was fluent in Hebrew and French"; Cindy crawford, "Supermodel, graduated from high school with 4. credits and got a full scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwest University"; Kate beckinsale, starring in Van Helsing and Pearl Harbor, studied French and Russian literature at Oxford University for three years. When I was a teenager, I won the All-English Prize twice for short stories and poems. Hedy Lamarr, "a beautiful movie star in 193s and 194s, was also the first applicant for the joint patent of spread spectrum communication technology, and this concept was later applied to Wifi wireless network".

their deeds have been spread over and over again. "This is not a list of geeks who happen to be beautiful." A voice in the academic circle believes that the saying that "smart people are usually ugly" is out of date.

the combination of beauty and intelligence and the continuous optimization of genes?

The reason why fathers make great contributions to the inheritance of looks may be a reflection of human instinct of "self-protection", because there is no doubt about who is the mother and who is the father, so we must be like the father, which is beneficial to the baby and can encourage the father to invest more love.

If there is a positive correlation between beauty and ugliness and IQ, as Kanazawa said, the next question worth exploring is: Why?

At present, there are many explanations in academic circles. For example, some genetic factors determine both beauty and intelligence. A doctor of sociology at Cambridge University replied to the reporter: "social homogamy". In academic circles, this is a highly recognized explanation, that is, the continuous combination of intelligent genes and beautiful genes. That is to say, men with higher intelligence are usually at the top of the social class, or "successful men". They usually marry beautiful women, and their descendants just have both wisdom and beauty-this is completely different from Bernard Shaw's bitter famous saying that "fools will always find more fools to admire him".

This view is supported by the field of evolutionary psychology, and the voice from the biological field further analyzes that mothers make great contributions to intelligence and fathers make great contributions to appearance. The reason put forward by those who hold this view is that human intelligence-related genes are mainly concentrated on the X chromosome. In addition, women have two X chromosomes (one from their father and one from their mother), while men have only one (from their mother), so the intelligence of mothers plays a more important role in the inheritance of boys. The reason why fathers make a great contribution to the inheritance of looks, American psychologist Christenfeld explained, may be a manifestation of human instinct of "self-protection", because there is no doubt about who is the mother and who is the father, so we must be like the father, which is beneficial to the baby and can also encourage the father to invest more love.

"Boys' chromosomes are XY, so boys' IQs are all inherited from their mothers; The girl is XX, so the IQ of the girl is half influenced by her parents. Because the IQ of girls is influenced by their parents at the same time, there will be a neutralization effect, and the distribution of IQ of girls will show a natural distribution, that is, the middle is the most and the poles are less. Boys are only influenced by one side, and the IQ distribution will be biased at both ends. That is to say, there are more geniuses in boys, and there are also many boys in fools ... "Please note that there is still great controversy in the academic circles, but this does not seem to hinder the enthusiasm of the people for spreading this kind of" quality baby birth experience ".

"This is actually a very complicated problem, and the folk story is not reliable. But at present, there is a view that mothers have a greater influence on genetic factors-genes are in the mother's body for more than 9 months in the process of completing the transcription and coding of genetic information. But there are still many unsolved mysteries about how the maternal environment affects or changes this genetic process. " Professor Lu Daru from the School of Life Sciences of Fudan University told the reporter.

In fact, related research is one of the hot topics in the field of life science in recent years: epigenetics. To put it simply, in the genetic process, DNA is transcribed into RNA, RNA is translated into protein, and protein is coded one by one. This process finally creates people with parental genetic factors and individual differences. At first, genes with coding function were sought after by academic circles. Scientists believe that this is the "source" of genetic mystery. However, with the deepening of research, researchers found that those "non-coding genes" that have no coding function also play an important role in the genetic process-they can't code, but they may modify them, and as a result, the outcome has changed.

"The genes passed from mother to child have not changed, but DNA has been modified in the process of inheritance. To put it more vividly, it may have worn clothes and painted nails, and its function has changed as a result. This is a popular explanation for epigenetics. In the mother, how does the environment created by the mother's uterus for fetal development affect the modification process? There is no conclusion. " A doctor of biology explained this.

There is also a cautious view that children inherit genetic factors of various physical elements from their parents at the same time, so the influence of genetic factors obtained from their mothers or fathers is the same. The so-called "combination of beauty and intelligence" may have greater sociological significance than biology, that is, the external environment that children come into contact with will have an impact on their appearance and intellectual development. For example, beautiful children usually get more attention from people around them when they grow up, and receive more careful education, so their talents are better developed and cultivated.

"But like people's research on constellations and blood types, there are many accidental factors here!" Geneticists have repeatedly stressed that.

The rise of plastic surgery culture, the sequela of "judging people by their appearances"

Statistics show that beautiful employees can bring higher income to enterprises, and most of them can also create higher-than-average profits for enterprises. Face experts even suggest that employers, if applicants are equally qualified in all aspects, how should the relationship between appearance and intelligence affect social people-judge people by their appearances, which makes sense?

what is the biggest headache for recruiters in these employment seasons? It's not a massive resume, it's not an unintelligible self-introduction, but those registration photos that have been over-decorated by computer software!

Some people lament that it is no longer easy to see "original" photos on job seekers' resumes. Among them, there is the vanity of job seekers, but to a greater extent, it is tired by social culture, and the recruiter is also to blame.

An interesting question follows: Since when do people tend to judge others' abilities, even their intelligence? This is contrary to the popular folk saying, such as "God is fair to people, and if he gives you more beauty, he will give you less wisdom".

In fact, the relationship between appearance and intelligence has aroused the interest of the scientific community many years ago. There are two relationships to be solved in this riddle:

First, what is the relationship between appearance and intelligence?

second, how do the general public view this relationship?

who says smart people are usually ugly?