A Tinge of Beauty is Advantage Forever

Recently I have been watching 30 Rock, a US sitcom. The subtle comedy of the show has caught my attention for past few weeks. (E)liz(abeth) Lemon is the protagonist of the show. In one of the seasons she is dating, Dr. Drew Baird, an incredibly handsome guy. Mr handsome is as dumb as he is attractive. However, Liz finds out life is a cakewalk for Mr handsome. He gets favourable treatment everywhere, he dodges parking tickets, gets seats in a fully booked restaurants, gets free drinks at bar,..... . 

Haven't we all come across similar situations somewhere or the other? The general perception is that beautiful people irrespective of their gender get preferential treatment. One of the candidates whom I was approached for a middle level managerial position for a mnc was very upfront about it "I am not a very presentable person. I am not sure if your organisation even consider me for the position?" This perception must have been formed by his experiences over the years. Many of us share his notion; some are more vocal than others. Aristotle noted that “personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference."

An interesting study was conducted by Peter Bresnon and his colleagues in 1970s. They left stamped envelopes with completed college application form in telephone booth at airports. The forms also included photograph of the applicant which gave indication about candidate's physical attractiveness. Guess what, forms of more attractive people were more often mailed back or handed over to airport officials. 

The perception of prejudice based on physical attractiveness in the business world, whether true or imaginary, hurts me and my fraternity, human resource professionals, the hardest. We are responsible for ensuring fairness in the selection and the promotion process. The system is supposed to be meritocratic. A system where intelligence, qualification, skill, knowledge and experience are rewarded. But experiences like above begs to question whether are we really in meritocratic system? Is our definition of meritocratic right and can physical attractiveness be considered a component of merit? 

According to a Harvard study men who are at least 6' tall make an average salary of $5,525 more than their shorter, 5' 5" counterparts. Malcom Gladwell, author of Blink, conducted survey of around half of US Fortune 500 companies. The CEOs of these companies were just under six feet tall, 3 inches taller than average American male. Around 14.5 percent of all US men are six feet or over while that number is 58 percent among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Only 10 CEOs were shorter than 5'6''.  In the same book Gladwell cites research which concludes that for every inch in height, a person earns $789 a year more in salary. Seems like glass ceilings in the corporate world is not restricted to only women and minorities.

Newsweek conducted survey of 202 corporate hiring managers and 964 members of public. The revelations for the survey confirmed the perception of prejudice towards physically attractive people. Some of the noteworthy findings of the survey are:

• 57 percent of the managers believed that unattractive people will have difficult time getting Job. 68 percent managers believed that looks will affect job performance evaluation. It appears that we often judge a book by its cover.

• Looks were third most important character attribute which impacted a recruiter's decision, experience and confidence being the first two. Looks were more important than where a candidate went to school/ college and a sense of humor. Hair transplant may give your career bigger boost than a degree from IIM. Surprised! Ask Harsha Bhogle.

• 64 percent of hiring managers said they believe companies should be allowed to hire people based on looks—when a job requires an employee to be the “face” of a company at retail stores or in sales. This of course is the present practice for some positions. If you do not believe this, next time when you board an airline, observe the aircraft crew for physical attractiveness.  

Newsweek Video - 'Looksism Goes Pop'

 

Beautiful people have always been associated with desirable social characteristics like being more intelligent, being funnier, having better social skills, and being warmer. This is a classic example of halo effect where judgment of a specific skill is often influenced by the person's overall impression.

Most of the studies cited above have been conducted in the western nations. But Indian culture is also obsessed with beauty and fairness. Fairness products in Indian is around Rs 2000 cr industry. Most of the advertisements of fairness products revolve around the same theme. A dark maiden finds success eluding her. As soon as she starts using fairness cream, life takes a complete U turn. The poor maiden discovers the brighter side of life (sirf char hafton mein). Many a times I have come across people complaining about unfair treatment based on looks.

Traditional notion of merit considers only human capital aspect i.e. intelligence, qualification, skill, knowledge and experience of a person. Catherine Hakim, professor of sociology at the London School of Economics writes that we have been using economic capital (money) and social capital (contacts/ networking) to get ahead of others. We may frown upon the idea of anybody getting ahead based on money or contacts but that is the hard and accepted truth within the business world. Professor Hakim writes "professional women should use their "erotic capital" — beauty, sex appeal, charm, dress sense, liveliness, and fitness — to get ahead at work." 

Tests done on new born babies (few days old) show that they stared longer at photographs of people who were rated as more attractive by adults. Dr Alan Slater, a psychologist at Exeter University opines on these studies that "It used to be thought that new-born babies came into the world as a totally blank sheet of paper on which experience will then write. But what we are finding more and more is that babies are born with a number of in-built mechanisms that help them to organise and make sense of their newly-perceived world - and one of these is that they display an attractiveness effect." Evolution has perhaps genetically programmed us to prefer attractive people.

Has beauty become the ugly truth of today's corporate world? I am sure the cases of intended discrimination based on physical attractiveness will be few and far between. Any organisation will want an competent person at the helm of affairs than a fashion model. So, is it just the halo effect in play here? Is it something to do with our evolution and so deeply ingrained that even unconsciously we assume that a person's physical attractiveness is an indicator of their other characteristics? Is it morally and ethically right for to use beauty to gain advantage? There are too many questions and too few answers.

What is your take???

In Pursuit of Happiness

I have often wondered, why do we do what we do in life? Why do we get up and go to work everyday, why do we compete with our friends and colleagues and try to be better than them, why do we must have a better job than our relatives, why must we have a better partner than our neighbours. Is it because all of them will make us look more successful or is it really because they will make us happy?

What is the yardstick to measure success of a man's life? I think, it is how happy and contend he is with his life. Happiness is the purpose of a man's life. Irrespective of who we are and what we have have achieved, we are always striving for something better in life. This pursuit of better life is the pursuit of happiness, the purpose of a man's life.

What are the key ingredients of happiness? Is it a fat pay cheque, a big car, a big bungalow, a beautiful wife, a powerful position? If that was the case, the Forbes list of the richest and the most powerful people in the world will also be the list of the happiest people in the world. Happiness is a difficult thing to attain because we perhaps do not have an idea what happiness is.

Can money buy anyone happiness? If it can't, why do people behave as if it can? The Beatles sang that money can't buy you love. They could have sung that money can't buy you happiness and would have been as right as they were. There is a big volume of research which conclude that although rich people are more satisfied, however money can increase with happiness to a very limited extend. Fedrick Herzberg in his Two Factor Theory also advocated that salary was a hygiene factor. It does not give positive satisfaction though its absence can cause dissatisfaction. Happiness may be difficult to achieve but the obstacle to it is not primarily monetary. Money is a consequence of greater objectives of our life. Bill Gates didn't aim for billion of dollars, his dream was to put a computer on every desk in every home. Sachin Tendulkar never aimed for million of dollars, he only followed his passion.

When I was a kid, a gentleman who knew I liked sweets asked me "How would I feel, if I got 1 sweet? ". I said "I will be happy.". He asked me " Will I be happier if I got 5 sweets." I said "Of course, yes." He raised the number to 100 and asked the same question. This time I wasn't sure of my answer.  The gentleman was perhaps asking a different question, "Can more and more of materialistic things bring happiness?". Buddhism describes it as ordinary happiness where the happiness after a point changes into unhappiness and suffering.

Many religious thinkers, philosophers and psychologists since time immemorial have pondered over the subject of happiness. Students of Socrates had contradictory ideas about it. Aristippus subscribed to the hedonistic lifestyle and preached that goal of life is to seek external pleasure. According to Plato the human soul consists of three parts: The reason, the will and the desire. Happiness of man depended on balancing these three parts of the human soul.

Ever smiling Gautam Buddha preaches that path of happiness starts from understanding root causes of our suffering. Control of the mind is the stepping stone in the journey of happiness. It is about detaching oneself from passions, pleasures, needs and wants of life. He advises that peace of mind will lead to nirvana or the ultimate truth. The eight fold path can help one achieve nirvana. Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says we can train our minds in habits of well-being, to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfillment.

TED Talks Matthieu Ricard: The habits of happiness

American psychologist, Abraham Maslow in his theory of hierarchy of needs has described self actualisation as the highest level of need. He argues that need for self actualisation is deeply ingrained in human mind. It comes to surface when lower levels of needs are satisfied. Maslow defines self-actualization to be "the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency for him [the individual] to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.". In brief, self actualization is full realization of ones true potential. The concept is not very different from the idea of nirvana which has found mention in both Buddhism and Hinduism.

Religion has always been associated with happiness. Religion was described as "opiate of the masses" by Karl Marx suggesting that it creates a feeling of goodness and helps the masses to overlook and cope with injustices done to them. So does religion only creates hallucination of happiness or is there an significant relationship between religiousness and happiness? The simplest explanation - if religion makes people happy, the most religious countries will also be the happiest countries in the world. However, the evidence points to the contrary. According to Gallup's global well-being surveys in 2010, Denmark, Sweden and Netherlands were amongst happiest nations in the world.  Coincidentally, according to another Gallup survey, they were among the least religious countries in the world.

Let us look at another piece of research. Ed Diener, Louis Tay , and David G. Myers in a study have found out that difficult life circumstances tend to make people more religious. Their study concluded that countries where economic situation was bad, like sub Saharan African countries, middle east were likely to be more religious. The most developed countries, like Scandinavian countries were likely to be least religious. In countries where economic or social conditions were not good but religiosity high, high religiousness was associated with high happiness indicating that religion may neutralize the negative effects of poverty, suffering and hardship. Religion perhaps then is a means to deal with uncertainties and difficulties of life, and which helps us find a meaning in our life. The relationship between religion and happiness is not as simple as it seems.

The pursuit of happiness is not the pursuit of material things. It is not even detachment and sacrifice of worldly possessions. It is what Cyprian Norwid wrote: "To be what is called happy, one should have something to live on, something to live for, something to die for. The lack of one of these results in drama. The lack of two results in tragedy.".