Integrating self‐control with physical attractiveness and cognitive ability to examine pathways to career success

Abstract

Physical attractiveness, cognitive ability, and self‐control predict many important outcomes but are rarely examined in combination, particularly in the context of career success. Drawing from Judge et al.'s (2009, J. Appl. Psychol., 94, 742) model of income antecedents and Caspi et al.'s (1989, J. Pers., 57, 375) concepts of cumulative and interactional continuity, this study investigated the pathways leading from these characteristics to career outcomes. Specifically, we developed a model with links involving (1) attractiveness, intelligence, and self‐control; (2) self‐evaluations, delinquent behaviours, educational attainment, and job complexity; and (3) income and job satisfaction. The model was examined with data from three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Results supported a slightly modified model, with major findings indicating attractiveness, intelligence, and self‐control measured during adolescence predicted later self‐evaluations or delinquent behaviour; these variables predicted later education level; education level predicted job complexity; and job complexity predicted income and job satisfaction. Implications related to this integrated model are discussed. Practitioner points Interventions might focus on enhancing self‐control‐related skills in adolescents in an effort to improve later work‐related outcomes. Core self‐evaluations and delinquent tendencies could also be targeted during adolescence to influence life pathways relevant to career outcomes.

The Attractiveness Advantage At Work: A Cross-Disciplinary Integrative Review

“…An additional body of work further speaks to the question of whether such human and social capital differences indeed explain the attractiveness advantage. These studies come mostly from economics research and generally use large survey datasets (Berri, Simmons, Van Gilder, & O'Neil, 2011;Converse, Thackray, Piccone, Sudduth, Tocci, & Miloslavic, 2016;Hamermesh & Biddle, 1994;Judge, Hurst, & Simon, 2009;Kanazawa & Still, 2017) or experimentally recreated labor markets (Graham, Harvey, & Puri, 2016;Mobius & Rosenblat, 2006) to understand potential supply-side causes of the attractiveness advantage. Research in this domain has used two general strategies to argue that the attractiveness gap in earnings is at least partly unrelated to the value of the worker to the employer, and thus represents unmeritocratic taste-based discrimination.…”

“…Across one or more datasets, the authors extracted data on capital proxies such as educational attainment, self-reported health status, labor market experience, tenure with the firm, whether the respondent is perceived as highly intelligent by the interviewer, and a crude measure of self-esteem. To gauge whether bias or taste-based discrimination might be at play, the approach in this article and other similar investigations (e.g., Berri et al, 2011;Converse et al, 2016;Hamermesh & Biddle, 1994;Judge et al, 2009;Kanazawa & Still, 2017) is to include the proxies of human and social capital as control variables, and if the effect of attractiveness holds when these are controlled for, to conclude that the "remaining" effect of attractiveness is unrelated to human and social capital, and thus likely not based on the value of the worker to the organization. However, interpreting the coefficient of attractiveness net of these controls is very difficult as various aspects of human and social capital cannot be observed.…”

“…Most claims of the attractiveness advantage representing a bias not justified by performance differences are open to strong alternative interpretations of the findings as statistical discrimination. In virtually all studies in this line of work, attractive individuals are shown to have higher work-relevant resources (Converse et al, 2016;Hamermesh & Biddle, 1994;Judge et al, 2009;Kanazawa & Still, 2017;Mobius & Rosenblat, 2006). The fact that these results, providing evidence for a process of statistical discrimination, are rarely the focus of studies and often not even discussed is indicative of the dominant interest in the literature in detecting taste-based discrimination.…”

“…For the most part, researchers take for granted that attractive people have higher work relevant resources, treat them as control variables, the influence of which is to be excluded, and focus on examining whether any association between attractiveness and earnings is left as it might constitute a performance-unrelated bias. Only rarely do researchers position human and social capital factors as explanations for the positive relationship between attractiveness and organizational productivity and consider these important work-related competence gaps interesting in themselves (e.g., Converse et al, 2016;Judge et al, 2009). In sum, studies on attractiveness, performance differences, and earnings yield evidence that is, in our view, rarely strong enough to claim that taste-based discrimination is at play, although they almost invariably provide evidence that statistical discrimination does play a role.…”

The Impact of Applicants’ Weight and Education About Obesity on Applicant Ratings

“…Because career and religion are often integral parts of a person's life, it is important to consider how they are related to selfcontrol. Research has shown higher job satisfaction to be associated with both childhood selfcontrol (Converse et al, 2016) and selective control strategies during decision making (Schindler & Tomasik, 2010). In addition, selfcontrol has been related to greater career suc cess based on both extrinsic outcomes and intrinsic outcomes (Converse, Pathak, DePaulHaddock, Gotlib, & Merbedone, 2012).…”