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Physical attractiveness and the teaching ability of college professors

Interested-Participant has a blog post entitled Professors Paid Better for Good Looks. This is a quote from a research study that allegedly shows that better looking professors get better teaching evaluations:

To the extent that teaching is an important component of job performance, and to the extent that teaching evaluations accurately measure performance, basing salary on measured teaching performance implies a significant wage premium for beauty, even for college professors.

Interested-Participant goes on to make the following conclusion, which I disagree with:

Although not stated but implied by the research is that actions taken by teachers to maintain their appearances can be directly correlated to job performance. Additionally, actions taken to enhance one's appearance can be easily justified by increased rewards in stature and salary.

I suspect that this conclusion is for the most part false, because correlation doesn't prove causation. What I believe is going on is that physical attractiveness when one is young, especially in high school, has a lasting impact on one's personality. The person who is attractive in high school develops better self-esteem and better people skills. It's this self-esteem and these people skills that help the professor later in life to be a better teacher.

Of course one can't completely discount the impact that current physical attractiveness might play in a subjective evaluation of teaching ability, but I very strongly suspect that it's mostly past physical attractiveness, and not present physical attractiveness, that is correlated with teaching ability.

posted Monday, January 26, 2004

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