According to a study, attractive women saw their grades drop as courses and exams went online during the pandemic.
Adrian Mehic, a postdoctoral fellow at Lund University, analyzed the results of 300 male and female engineering students in Sweden before and after the Covid hit.
A panel of over 70 individual participants were asked to rate each student’s attractiveness using photographs of their faces.
The study found a significant drop in the average school grades of attractive female students – but only in “qualitative” courses in which teachers and students tend to associate with each other.
This includes subjects such as economics, in which exams and courses are subjectively assessed.
In quantitative courses – such as mathematics and physics – where the answers are usually only right or wrong, the same trend was not observed. There was no trend among men either.
Mr Mehic told DailyMail.com the results were not surprising as attractive people are known to have higher salaries and other benefits in the workforce.
A University of Wisconsin study published last year found that attractive people make up to nine percent more money than their peers.
Attractive people are said to have more confidence, so previous research has shown that they are better at presenting and speaking in public.
A new study finds that attractive women have lost advantages to their grades as schools have gone virtual during the Covid pandemic (file photo).
Adrian Mehic (pictured), a PhD student at Lund University, explained that the same phenomenon did not occur in male students
For his article, published in the journal Economic Letters, Mr. Mehic collected data from 307 engineering students in Sweden who started their studies between 2015 and 2019.
He also recruited a panel of 74 individual volunteers to rate study participants from one to ten based on a single headshot.
Degrees were drawn from the first two years of a five-year engineering program because they involved general studies rather than specialized courses.
After checking the age, sex, and professor’s gender in each course, Mehic found that attractive students in quality courses had a distinct advantage.
No comparable effect was found for the quantitative classes.
‘in math’ [and] physics courses [its] difficult to distinguish,” he explained.
“Usually there is a bit of right or wrong. you make calculations [and get the right or wrong answer].
“In business you have to present and argue.”
He said the advantage wasn’t enough to push a faltering student to the top of the class, but it did provide a small boost of a few percentage points.
When the Covid pandemic hit Sweden and much of the world in early 2020, schools were forced to use video apps like Zoom for teaching.
In many cases, professors didn’t even know what many of their students looked like, and face-to-face interactions almost died out.
During this time, the advantages that attractive female students had in high-quality courses disappeared.
Interestingly, the same phenomenon was not observed in men. Attractive male students maintained their small increase in grades compared to their less attractive peers.
Mr. Mehric believes this is because attractive men generally have other qualities that are valuable in quality courses such as: B. Increased self-confidence, which can be valuable during a graded class presentation.
He also said that the majority of the professors in the study were men, so women’s attractiveness may have been a stronger factor than men’s.
The researcher explained that while this is one of the first attempts to see how attractiveness works in school, attractive people are known to benefit from it in the workplace.
Several previous studies have also shown that there is value in being attractive in the labor market. A 2005 study found that attractive people with the same degrees were paid 10 percent more than their peers.
According to a 2001 study, physically attractive people are also more confident and improve valuable social skills that can benefit them at work and at school.
These skills can be valuable when negotiating salary or giving a presentation at school.
Source: Daily Mail
Lloyd Grunewald is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. He is a talented writer who focuses on bringing the latest entertainment-related news to his readers. With a deep understanding of the entertainment industry and a passion for writing, Lloyd delivers engaging articles that keep his readers informed and entertained.
