This just in: The more attractive you are, the more likely it is that you’re a selfish prick.
At least according to a new study out of Brunel University London.
Researchers at the university tested a theory in evolutionary psychology that claims good-looking people have more to gain from inequality because they tend to have higher social status.
The team scored 125 male and female participants on their level of conventional attractiveness, including things like weight, waist-to-chest ratio for men, and waist-to-hip ratio for women.
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Participants were then asked filled out a personality quiz which measured their attitudes toward inequality and selfishness. At the same time, they partook in an economics experiment in which they were given an amount of money then asked how they would share with someone else.
“We found that attractive men tended to be less egalitarian and less generous,” said Dr. Michael Price, the lead investigator and senior lecturer in psychology at Brunel University London.
Next, two groups of raters were brought in. The first group judged participants on their attractiveness. The second group judged them how altruistic and egalitarian they appeared based on their photos.
“We found that the ‘raters’ perceived better-looking men and women as being less altruistic and egalitarian,” Price said.
“Our results showed that, in fact, we may be justified in expecting more attractive men to behave in ways that are less favorable to economic and social equality,” he continued. “The results suggest that better-looking men may be biased towards being more selfish and less egalitarian.”
Price added that the study offers new insight into on why some guys may be more selfish than others.
“Several studies have suggested that wealthier people tend to care less about kindness and equality,” Price said. “But our study suggests that attractiveness is at least as important as wealth in influencing these attitudes.”
So there you have it, folks. Now, all you good-looking, smooth-talking fellas out there, stop being such selfish, unaltruistic assholes.
h/t: Gay Star News
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MacAdvisor
“So there you have it, folks. Now, all you good-looking, smooth-talking fellas out there, stop being such selfish, unaltruistic assholes.”
Or, in the alternative, perhaps us short, fat, socially awkward guys should behave more selfish, unaltruistic assholes so we will be perceived as better looking.
petensfo
Remember the “30 Rock” episode when Tina Fey was dating John Hamm. The super handsome Hamm had no idea that the privilege & love that society extended to him weren’t shared by everyone.
It’s why we love Tina Fey.
vive
@petensfo, well yes, except it would have been more convincing if Tina Fey weren’t herself very much privileged in looks.
Josh447
Good looking guys; Even the hottest guys get shut down. Just lookin for love like everyone else. There will always be “the food chain”. Picky this picky that. We all do it. It’s all relative. The trick is to not take it all too personally. We all have our inner prisons. No one gets a free ride.
Josh447
I want those pants on number 17. Please!
Captain Obvious
It’s easy to hate on the guys, but people fall all over themselves for even a little of their attention.
I think most of us have been on the receiving end of this from someone who’s been attracted to us.
Well super attractive guys get this all the time from nearly everyone around them. Their perception of the world becomes different in response to it.
Not saying it’s an excuse… but it’s easy to see how it can go to your head when people go out of their way to get your attention.
broadshoulder
Good looks fade about thirty – thirty five at a push. Sometimes its twenty five
Giancarlo85
I won’t say anything about this one. I think attractive guys can be… but hey it’s their own personality.
I consider myself pretty attractive… and yeah I can be selfish at times. And yes I’m not into certain types of guys… but hey that’s just me. And sometimes I think that some guys let themselves go because of laziness and become unattractive. Anyways, to each their own.
MarionPaige
“attractiveness” is totally subjective and “selflessness” is totally subjective. So, how much weight should be given to “a study” that claims attractive guys are more selfish? I say none. The only “science” i know of to measuring “attractiveness” is to measure the symmetry of facial features.
I will say that people who grow up being considered exceptional by the people around them probably expect that special treatment to continue. BUT THEN, take those people out of those situations and they have to adjust.
In NYC, my “attractiveness” changes on every block.
MarionPaige
I am reminded of something said years about about how beautify and exotic Iman looked. Someone said that, in Iman’s country, everyone looks like her, even the men. I saw a woman in the grocery store and I told her she looked like Iman. The woman said, “we’re from the same country”.
markgtx11
I don’t get this. As part of the gay community I find that the best looking guys are always the most kind, humble and compassionate. They are always the first ones to say hello or make someone feel included. Their generosity of spirit is overwhelming at times. I have a hard time believing this is true.
jwtraveler
@MarionPaige: “attractiveness” is totally subjective and “selflessness”
What fantasy world do you live in?
jwtraveler
No science needed to confirm this: Rich people are greedier.
People who have more, of anything, believe that they are more deserving and are likely to expect and demand it.
Hardly news!
Sammy Schlipshit
@markgtx11:
Oh, Mark. Sorry to burst your bubble but you live in denial or are just being sarcastic.
I’m goin’ with the latter.
Good looking/beautiful gay guys are the worst….as are the same looking men in the str8 world.
Generalizations, I know but those are my observations over the last 69 years and hundreds of men.
MarionPaige
I just watched the movie Miasto 44 (City 44) and, one thing was clearly conveyed in the movie i.e., the Poles looked pretty much like the Germans. at several points in the movie, German soldiers were ready to kill men in hospitals they couldn’t tell were injured German soldiers. The propaganda on both sides was that “The Enemy” was evil and ugly and yet, they all looked pretty much the same.
SteveDenver
Selfish? I think good looking people have many enablers willing to foster their sense of entitlement.
My handsome friend Arnie — whose family owns a tailor shop, so he arrives everywhere in custom-tailored goods — also sports astounding facial features and a good-natured demeanor. We all wonder when Arnie will learn that drinks in bars cost money — bartenders and bar managers buy him drinks when admiring patrons aren’t keeping up.
Arnie, fortunately, is not a prick.
TrueWords
All people are as selfish as other allow them to be to them and towards others…it is QUITE simple…
Arconcyyon
I´m no find dont´s not no loooks beautiflyyy guys and guys day end the day ! fairnesss the face the mem very mem guys not no is they iclusion the party event world world fest love sex pratic sex public phottos is educacion level ! Beautiflyy gyus Beautfiflyy Curpus and Curpus ! Sex and like Sex Active like Active Passivi is like Passivi not dont´s no pratic ! I´m I´m is very very more pulss the looks fashion vest looks potter money euro ! Sex very Sex the Heterossex Mem His Big gifted racy racy racy ! I´m no not boy mem guys kids teen transsex drag travistlook no ! I´m like the like the I´m !
Bob LaBlah
@broadshoulder: I could not agree more with your comment. Some times the reverse can happen as well. I watched numerous kids grow up in my neighborhood and saw how many of them actually became better looking as they grew older, gained weight and filled out while many of the conceited little twerps who had all of humanity fantasizing about rendezvous with their butt holes when they were younger could not accept that regardless of how many hours they had spent squatting, stair mastering, crunching and curling all of it proved futile in trying to stave off gravity, nature and last but not least, time/age. I bet the reality of actually realizing that no one found their tirades cute any more had to be devastating. And god forbid once they realized it might be possible that they had already had their day and now might have to do for themselves as far as support………..
I sure hope a “survey” is being done on “yesterdays” twink porn stars and just how they are fairing in today’s “market”. I bet many of them wished they had learned a marketable job skill that they can still put to use besides sex. Enjoy it while you can twinks. Your come-uppance day IS going to coming.
The guys in the photo used for the article really do need to go back into the gym. I don’t see a one that I can actually say I would have turned around and looked at twice.
vive
A lot of guys peak at 25. I pity them.
spiffy
I read about this study on another web site, and that article mentioned that “The study found no such correlation between attractiveness and egalitarianism in girls.”
So it’s just the hot guys who are d-bags. So my friends are right, there is no such thing as a perfect man.
imperator
It is by now well known among people who pay attention to research on the topic that privilege- primarily economic, but now we’re seeing that even privilege in terms of attractiveness- brings out the worst in people. Pricks in expensive cars are less likely to brake for pedestrians, rich people are more likely to cheat at games, and so on. The overarching theme is: when you’ve got it good, you start thinking you *deserve* it all. You start assuming that your “success” is indicative of your worthiness (because we want to believe that the world is “just”) and you start acting like an entitled, self-centered shit.
The antidote is humility– acknowledging all of the externalities from which one benefits (often undeservingly) and acknowledging the profound social interconnectedness to which we owe so much. Because the other alternative is you continue acting like an entitled, self-centered shit, hoarding everything you can get your grubby mitts on, mistreating your “lessers” until they get SO pissed off and sick of your crap that they form a torch-wielding peasant mob and they tear you screaming limb from limb and they *eat you.*
Giancarlo85
@jwtraveler: I pretty much agree with you on that one. When someone says “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” or whatever silly statement… I say “no it’s not”. If someone is fat and ugly, their fat and ugly. I don’t want to be mean, but beauty is often NOT subjective.
Bob LaBlah, I’m pretty sure the guys in the photos are in pretty good shape. Yes, none are bodybuilders, but none of them are probably attracted to old middle aged balding men either… so that kinda rules you out lol?
Giancarlo85
@Bob LaBlah: And man the rest of your post seems to connotate that you’re a bitter old man who misses his younger years. You criticize the men in the photo for being twinks, and you tell them to hit the gym? LOL. When was the last time you hit the gym?
Bitter and disgruntled. That’s all I read in your posts man. Sorry. And yes I know I’m getting older… I’m 29, will be 30 soon. But hey, people still mistake me for 21-22. I’m slim. Not muscular. No body hair either. Just the way I am I guess. Am I a gym type? Nope. I hike though… work out different ways. Not a gym type at all, nor do I pretend to be muscular or a bodybuilder. More of a swimmer anyways. Not ever letting myself go.
Realitycheck
@jwtraveler:
Better yet, people that have more, because they want and need more and work hard at collecting more……
Realitycheck
This article is just a huge generalization, there are all kind of people, many good looking kind good guys out there.
And another point the article doesn’t mention is how good looking guys can be harassed by people around them that sees them either as sex objects, a piece of meat or
something to achieve.
In my younger days, most often then not I could not enjoy a night out with my friends because as usual some troll will became enraged to the most polite NO.
I never understood that, a friend told me once there is nothing more attractive then refusal, another told me she could see how some one ego would kick in.
It is not a good thing when people don’t care about what you say and they only stare at your face or eyes or what ever, bottom line if some good looking guys seem more selfish or perhaps rude is because they just had it…..
Saint Law
@Giancarlo85: Think of a peach stewed in piss. That’s you that is.
Giancarlo85
@Saint Law: And you are a bitter old queen who doesn’t seem to have much intelligence.
derp
This article is bull$h!t, I’m not selfish at all…
markgtx11
I’ve seen this argument played out hundreds of times on blogs: older gay men berating younger gay men for being arrogant and mean—younger gay men dismissively responding that they are just jealous because they are no longer young, skinny and hot. Throw in some gay internet trolls “throwing shade” with nasty comments and suddenly the entire comments section is a huge flaming war.
I think this article is a generalization because I have seen ugly, selfish behavior from all sides. I think it was Larry Kramer who said that we are a gay population rather than a community. I think that is a pretty accurate analysis. We like to pretend we are all the same because we share the same sexual orientation, but the truth is we are a big mixture of individual realities. And since we largely socialize in the same spaces this particular issue becomes center stage—especially since our socialization largely revolves around sexual conquest. But straight older people who try to socialize in social scenes dominated by a younger crowd are also seen as strange or creepy–so to vilify young gay men for rejecting older guys in my mind is unfair. I also used to feel bad for older gay men who got pushed away by younger guys in bars. But then I saw many of these same older guys only focused on young guys—and dismissively rejected gay men in their own age group. So if many older gay men aren’t looking for men their age either, how can they trash younger gay men for rejecting them?
Like it or not, being young and sexually attractive is the main currency in the gay community. If you are “rich” in that regard you get the message that you are special. You are enabled by people and a social scene that puts you on a pedestal—for a time. You don’t have to care and to a large degree this privilege gives many a sense of entitlement and leads some to treat those who are “poor” in a very cruel manner. I always thought it was interesting when I would see good looking younger gay men crying big fat tears at candlelight vigils for young gay men who had been gay bashed or bullied into suicide—holding signs saying “It Gets Better!!”–and then turn around and treat other gay men who they deemed their “lessers” in the gay world (both in person and online) with utter contempt. It Gets Better—as long as you look as good as me.
The reality is time marches on and no one stays young forever. But just like teenagers who think that the things their parents warn them about will never happen to them—some young gay men think that all those things they despise in older gay men won’t ever happen to them. They are going to live the fairy tale and stay beautiful and fabulous forever and live happily every after. But the truth is beauty fades—and soon you will be on the other side of the fence dealing with a younger gay crowd invalidating you through their words and actions. The best thing to do is to find something good in what is your inevitable future–and a value system that doesn’t depend on the superficial value judgments of others. I know many gay men who could not do that and sadly ended up turning to addiction in order to cope.
Ultimately it comes down to how we each choose to behave. Using physical attractiveness as a measuring stick for how you behave or treat others–regardless of your age–is a pretty ugly personal legacy.
Realitycheck
@markgtx11:
I agree with most of what you say, with one addition,
I have seen not attractive young guys going after the
occasional super good-looking older guy and guess what?
Same situation in reverse, the young guy couldn’t take no for an answer.
In their mind their look was not relevant because they were younger, LOL
That said, it would be nice if many gay guys, got that boyfriend they are
looking for and got off the dance floor……
onthemark
Several commenters have tangentially brought up this point – most good-looking guys were not ALWAYS good-looking! They were (for instance) dorky as teenagers and peaked later. Or they peak at various times. There would be relatively few good-looking guys who were considered good-looking at every age, and knew it, and internalized those attitudes.
We’ve all seen funny photos of celebrities as incredibly dorky teenagers: “Can you recognize this star?”
So it’s always a bit questionable to what extent any good-looking guy totally internalizes the stuff discussed in this study.
Sansacro
@broadshoulder: I heard that’s a problem in your part of the country.
Sansacro
@MarionPaige: Selfishness may fall on a spectrum, but it’s hardly subjective.
Sansacro
@markgtx11: LOL!!
markgtx11
@Realitycheck: True. It all comes down to a sense of entitlement–which is a manifestation of selfishness, regardless of age: “It’s all about me–I want things my way, and if it’s not my way, it’s unfair.”
I have a gay co-worker who is my age but prefers to socialize with fellow co-workers who are straight, cute and in their twenties. I have tried to be friends with him but it’s clear he isn’t really interested in hanging out with anyone who isn’t young and cute. The funny thing is that I see him on Grindr complaining about how ageist and superficial gay men are–the whole “I can be biased but you can’t” double standard.
Now, I can choose to be mad about this reality–or choose to invest in other people who reciprocate my friendship. When this particular reality became clear, I chose the latter. He has an absolute right to do what he wants, but so do I.
In my opinion too many guys use sexual attraction as their social filter. But when you stop treating your social circle as an extension of your ego or as padding for your self esteem—and you make friends based primarily on who they are as people rather than what they look like–your sense of what really matters and concept of friendship tends to change for the better. Try having a serious problem and see how many of your pretty scene friends are there for you when you really need them.
Sammy Schlipshit
@markgtx11:
Here’s a suggestion.
Since your coworker has exposed himself on Grindr, why not tell him you feel that is what he is doing to you?
markgtx11
@Sammy Schlipshit: Because that would indicate a sense of entitlement on my part. He has an absolute right to hang out with and primarily socialize with young cute straight guys. Who am I to confront him about his choice of a social circle? I also have more than enough friends who value my friendship without having to force the hand of those who really don’t. And his Grindr profile is one of those headless chest shots and although I know its him he is a co-worker so that complicates things a bit.
Sammy Schlipshit
@markgtx11:
I was suggesting more of a conversation rather than a confrontation.
markgtx11
@Sammy Schlipshit: Good suggestion. However gay men my age hanging out with the young and unavailable guys is getting to be a common cliche and a tired conversation. It’s easier to just let it go and then there is no problem. I’d rather make new friends with guys who aren’t trying to turn back time via their social network.
MarionPaige
“science” has made the observation that people who are considered “attractive” tend to have symmetrical facial features. The subject “study” doesn’t mention how they they went about defining what is “attractive”. And do we want to assign the definition of “attractive” to a nation of pale, unwashed people with bad teeth? To the average UK citizen, something that looks “upper class” is probably considered attractive (in other words, something that looks inbred is probably considered attractive in the UK).
Realitycheck
@markgtx11:
<<True. It all comes down to a sense of entitlement–which is a manifestation of selfishness, regardless of age:
<< “It’s all about me–I want things my way, and if it’s not my way, it’s unfair.”
Thank you that is actually the perfect definition, "entitlement".
@markgtx11:
<I’d rather make new friends with guys who aren’t trying to turn back time via their social network.
Absolutely right, your life doesn't begin or end with co-worker, plenty of nice people out there
to make friends with.
MarionPaige
got a look at the “methodology” this study used for determining attractiveness. the study used measurements from BODY scans (not facial features but body ratios).
We may all know “attractive” when we see it. However, trying to quantify “attractive” for purposes of some grand generalized conclusion about selflessness can be difficult.