漂亮脸蛋儿处处占便宜
[1] 当美国参议员乔•拜登(Joe Biden)“称赞”与自己竞争总统候选人资格的贝拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)是“首位口齿伶俐、聪明正直、相貌堂堂的主流非裔美国人”时，他并没为自己博得多少好感。
[2] 理解其中含义并不难：难道拜登参议员认为杰西•杰克逊(Jesse Jackson)和阿尔•夏普顿(Al Sharpton)等曾经竞争总统候选人资格的黑人口齿不清、愚钝肮脏、丑陋不堪吗？
[3] 拜登参议员一直忙于向所有人辩白，但没人真正愿意承认：奥巴马参议员的优点之一，就是他很帅气，而帅气的政治家通常会赢得选举。经济学家们已发现，有证据表明，在英国、澳大利亚、芬兰、德国和美国，选民更喜欢一张漂亮的脸。
[4] 在观察个人美貌和选举胜利之间的简单关联性时，研究人员必须小心谨慎。研究澳大利亚大选的埃米•金(Amy King)和安德鲁•利(Andrew Leigh)，想知道这些发现是否缘于年龄歧视或种族歧视：或许选民（大部分是白人）在看到一张黑人脸孔时，会认为这张脸的主人既没有吸引力，也不适合执政。这听起来似乎很有道理，但却不是真正的理由：把分析对象缩小到白人政治家，或年龄段较窄的人群，便可以得出一个类似于“美丽贴水”(beauty premium)的判断。
[5] 我们不仅喜欢漂亮的政治家。许多研究（其中多项研究都有美国经济学家丹尼尔•哈默迈什(Daniel Hamermesh)的参与）已发现，从广告业到法律界，“丑”人的薪水普遍较低。“美丽贴水”似乎在很多职业中都有所体现，甚至在那些没有理由把美貌因素考虑在内的职业中，也是如此。
[6] 这是一个有趣的现象。显而易见的解释，要么是雇主愿意被漂亮的员工包围（以及选民愿意在电视上看到漂亮的政治家），要么就是我们将美貌与诚实、智慧等有用的品质非理性地混为一谈。
[7] 不过，还有一种可能性：或许漂亮的人在工作中表现得更为出色。我们为什么想见到漂亮的好莱坞(Hollywood)明星，这一点不难解释，但同样的逻辑可能也适用于销售人员。即便对于一个官员而言，如果他或她长得漂亮的话，这个人的说服力也可能更强；此外，在有说服力的员工和没有魅力的员工之间，谁不想选择前者呢？
[8] 同时还要记住，漂亮的人在生活中可能会得到优待。这可能影响到看起来与相貌完全无关的能力：如果漂亮的孩子得到老师的全部关注，他们在学校里自然会表现得更好。
[9] 哈佛大学(Harvard)的马库斯•默比乌斯(Markus Mobius)和卫斯理大学(Wesleyan University)的坦尼娅•罗森布拉特(Tanya Rosenblat)进行过一项有趣的经济研究。他们询问志愿者，在有时间压力的条件下，他们预计自己完成迷宫拼图的成绩如何。默比乌斯和罗森布拉特发现，长相好看的人更为自信，但事实上做得并不是更好。我们由此可以归纳出这样的结论，或许是漂亮人的自信，帮助他们愚弄了雇主，从而获得更高的薪水。或者，自信在生活的许多方面都是一种固有的有用品质，只是在玩小拼图方面不怎么管用。
[10] 因此，人们在不同候选人之间进行的选择，或许更多是基于美丽贴水因素，而不是简单的歧视：漂亮的人可能确实具有更高的生产力。但哈默迈什教授设计了一套聪明的方式，证明不管我们的偏好出于什么理由，我们的所有选择都是基于肤浅的表象。他表明，当参选的候选人需要同时出现在不同场合时，他们会由于使用了一张更讨人喜欢的照片而提高自己的成功机率。
[11] 世界上最理性的选举，无疑是美国经济学会(American Economic Association)会员资格的选举。
[12] 作者：英国《金融时报》专栏作家蒂姆•哈福德(Tim Harford) 译者/梁鸥
UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST: PRETTY VACANCIES
[1] Senator Joe Biden did himself no favours when he “praised” his fellow presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”.
[2] It did not take long for the implication to sink in: does Senator Biden think that previous black candidates such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are inarticulate, dim, dirty or ugly?
[3] Senator Biden has been charging around apologising to everybody, but what nobody really wants to admit is this: one of Senator Obama's qualities is that he is handsome, and handsome politicians have a habit of getting elected. Economists have found evidence that voters prefer a pretty face in the UK, Australia, Finland, Germany and the US.
[4] Researchers have to be careful when they observe simple correlations between subjective beauty and electoral success. Amy King and Andrew Leigh, who studied Australian elections, wondered whether the findings were driven by ageism or racism: perhaps (mostly white) voters see a black face and believe the face's owner is both unattractive and unfit to govern. That sounds miserably plausible, but it is not driving the results: restricting analysis only to white politicians, or those in a narrower age band, produces similar estimates of a beauty premium.
[5] It is not just politicians that we prefer to be beautiful. A number of studies, many involving the American economist Daniel Hamermesh, have found that “ugly” people earn less in many walks of life, from advertising to law. The beauty premium seems to apply even in professions where there is no reason to expect that beauty counts.
[6] This is an intriguing pattern. The obvious explanations are either that employers like to be surrounded by pretty staff (and voters like to see pretty politicians on TV), or that we irrationally conflate beauty with useful qualities such as honesty or intelligence.
[7] There is, however, another possibility: perhaps beautiful people are better at their jobs. There is no mystery as to why we want decorative Hollywood stars, but the same logic might apply to sales staff. Even a bureaucrat might be more persuasive if he or she is good looking, and who wouldn't want persuasive employees instead of charmless ones?
[8] Remember, too, that beautiful people have probably been treated well all their lives. This might affect abilities that have nothing, ostensibly, to do with appearance: if handsome kids get all the attention from teacher, why would they not do better at school?
[9] One intriguing piece of economic research, from Markus Mobius of Harvard and Tanya Rosenblat of Wesleyan University, asked volunteers to guess how good they would be at solving maze puzzles under time pressure. Then the subjects were asked to solve as many as possible. Mobius and Rosenblat found that attractive people were more self-confident, but did not actually do any better. To the extent that we can generalise from this, perhaps the self-confidence of the beautiful helps them fool employers into paying more. Alternatively, perhaps self-confidence is an inherently useful trait in many walks of life, if not while solving little puzzles.
[10] So perhaps there is more to the beauty premium than simple discrimination: beautiful people could well be genuinely more productive. But Professor Hamermesh devised a clever way to demonstrate that whatever lies behind our preference, our choices are based on skin-deep evidence. He showed that when candidates stood for election on more than one occasion, their chances of success rose simply when they used a more flattering photograph.
[11] The electorate was surely the most rational in the world: the membership of the American Economic Association.
[12] By Tim Harford
原文链接：FT中文网
