Quirkology by Richard Wiseman

Author:Richard Wiseman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-fiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Science
ISBN: 9780330526050
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

THE HIDDEN INFLUENCE OF HOLLYWOOD

Research shows that we link looks with likeability. Whenever we see an attractive face, we unconsciously associate it with traits such as “kindness,” “honesty,” and “intelligence.” Good-looking people are more likely to be offered jobs than their ugly competitors, and to be given higher salaries than their equally competent colleagues.

But where do these sorts of irrational effects come from and why do they persist? Some researchers place the blame firmly at the door of Hollywood. Stephen Smith, from North Georgia College, and his colleagues decided to discover whether this was true. In the first of two highly revealing experiments, the researchers collected twenty of the top-grossing films for each decade between 1940 and 1989.43 They then asked a group of people to watch the films, rating all the characters identified by name on various scales, including how attractive they were, how moral, how intelligent, how friendly, and whether they lived happily ever afterward. After sitting through everything from It’s a Wonderful Life to Around the World in 80 Days (the 1956 version), and Last Tango in Paris to Beetlejuice, the raters evaluated 833 characters. The researchers discovered that physically attractive characters were depicted as more romantically active, morally good, intelligent, and far more likely than others to live happily every after.

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