How Good Looks Improve Academic Grades?

Kids

oi-Staff

By Staff

Monday, April 27, 2009, 13:43

Have you ever wondered why the most beautiful girl in the class gets better grades? It owes much to her good looks also? It is because non-cognitive traits play an important role in the assignment of grades in high school.

Physical attractiveness, personality, and grooming are good predictors of grades in high school and may indicate future success in college and labour markets. The three personal characteristics--physical attractiveness, personality and grooming—have an effect on students' grade point averages (GPA) in high school.

"Beauty premiums" and "plainness penalties" in the labour market come from an accumulation of differences in attention and rewards received from teachers throughout the school years.

Several studies in the academic,college,grade point averages,grooming,labour,literature,personality,physical attractiveness,school,university have found that physical attractiveness is significantly related to labour market earnings for men and women. In that case grooming and personality are stronger predictors of academic success in high school for boys and girls, respectively.

By looking at GPA as a function of a long list of individual, familial, school, and environmental characteristics that are likely to affect academic performance, it can be seen that physical attractiveness has a positive effect on GPA for both genders, but only when considered alone.

When physical attractiveness is considered along with grooming and personality, the positive effect of physical attractiveness on high school GPA turns negative for both genders. For male students, grooming was found to deliver the biggest overall effect on GPA) and in female students, personality is positively related to GPA.

Researchers from the University of Miami Health Economics Research Group conducted the study.