Just the other day, Robin Hanson quoted a paper that showed a 0.3 correlation between people’s judgements from photos of beauty and intelligence. So people seem to not believe in dumb blonde syndrome. It cited a survey [broken link] that, if I read the abstract correctly, also observes this correlated judgement, but denies that there is an actual correlation between beauty and intelligence. RH also linked to a study which not only claims that beauty and intelligence are correlated, but that this explains the wage premium for beauty. You may recall the study a few years ago that intelligence explains the wage premium for height.
I am surprised that there is disagreement in the psychological literature about whether beauty and intelligence are correlated.
Just the other day, Robin Hanson quoted a paper that showed a 0.3 correlation between people’s judgements from photos of beauty and intelligence. So people seem to not believe in dumb blonde syndrome. It cited a survey [broken link] that, if I read the abstract correctly, also observes this correlated judgement, but denies that there is an actual correlation between beauty and intelligence. RH also linked to a study which not only claims that beauty and intelligence are correlated, but that this explains the wage premium for beauty. You may recall the study a few years ago that intelligence explains the wage premium for height.
I am surprised that there is disagreement in the psychological literature about whether beauty and intelligence are correlated.
The most surprising thing to me about that link is that it indicates beautiful women are disadvantaged when seeking employment.
Robin also mentioned an interesting recent study on that counterintuitive finding.