IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-15-00602.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Blondes Really Dumb?

Author

Listed:
  • Jay L Zagorsky

    (The Ohio State University)

Abstract

Discrimination based on appearance has serious economic consequences. Women with blonde hair are often considered beautiful, but dumb, which is a potentially harmful stereotype since many employers seek intelligent workers. Using the NLSY79, a large nationally representative survey tracking young baby boomers, this research analyzes the IQ of white women and men according to hair color. Blonde women have a higher mean IQ than women with brown, red and black hair. Blondes are more likely classified as geniuses and less likely to have extremely low IQ than women with other hair colors, suggesting the dumb blonde stereotype is a myth.

Suggested Citation

  • Jay L Zagorsky, 2016. "Are Blondes Really Dumb?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(1), pages 401-410.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00602
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2016/Volume36/EB-16-V36-I1-P42.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hamermesh, Daniel S & Biddle, Jeff E, 1994. "Beauty and the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1174-1194, December.
    2. Naci Mocan & Erdal Tekin, 2010. "Ugly Criminals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 15-30, February.
    3. Price, Michael K., 2008. "Fund-raising success and a solicitor's beauty capital: Do blondes raise more funds?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 351-354, September.
    4. Guéguen, Nicolas, 2012. "Hair color and wages: Waitresses with blond hair have more fun," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 370-372.
    5. Sean P. Salter & Franklin G. Mixon & Ernest W. King, 2012. "Broker beauty and boon: a study of physical attractiveness and its effect on real estate brokers’ income and productivity," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(10), pages 811-825, May.
    6. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Parker, Amy, 2005. "Beauty in the classroom: instructors' pulchritude and putative pedagogical productivity," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 369-376, August.
    7. Olivier Gergaud & Victor Ginsburgh & Florine Livat, 2012. "Success of Celebrities: Talent, Intelligence or Beauty?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(4), pages 3120-3127.
    8. Johnston, David W., 2010. "Physical appearance and wages: Do blondes have more fun?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 10-12, July.
    9. Markus M. Mobius & Tanya S. Rosenblat, 2006. "Why Beauty Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 222-235, March.
    10. Berggren, Niclas & Jordahl, Henrik & Poutvaara, Panu, 2010. "The looks of a winner: Beauty and electoral success," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 8-15, February.
    11. Philip K. Robins & Jenny F. Homer & Michael T. French, 2011. "Beauty and the Labor Market: Accounting for the Additional Effects of Personality and Grooming," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 25(2), pages 228-251, June.
    12. Geoffrey Jones, 2008. "Blonde and blue‐eyed? Globalizing beauty, c.1945–c.19801," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 61(1), pages 125-154, February.
    13. Fletcher, Jason M., 2009. "Beauty vs. brains: Early labor market outcomes of high school graduates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 321-325, December.
    14. Arunachalam Raj & Shah Manisha, 2012. "The Prostitute's Allure: The Return to Beauty in Commercial Sex Work," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-27, December.
    15. Michèle Belot & V. Bhaskar & Jeroen van de Ven, 2012. "Beauty and the Sources of Discrimination," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(3), pages 851-872.
    16. Seung Chan Ahn & Young Hoon Lee, 2014. "Beauty And Productivity: The Case Of The Ladies Professional Golf Association," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(1), pages 155-168, January.
    17. Dechter, Evgenia Kogan, 2015. "Physical appearance and earnings, hair color matters," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 15-26.
    18. Biddle, Jeff E & Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1998. "Beauty, Productivity, and Discrimination: Lawyers' Looks and Lucre," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 172-201, January.
    19. Bernd Sussmuth, 2006. "Beauty in the classroom: are German students less blinded? Putative pedagogical productivity due to professors' pulchritude: peculiar or pervasive?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 231-238.
    20. Jeff Borland & Andrew Leigh, 2014. "Unpacking the Beauty Premium: What Channels Does It Operate Through, and Has It Changed Over Time?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 90(288), pages 17-32, March.
    21. Ponzo Michela & Scoppa Vincenzo, 2013. "Professors' Beauty, Ability, and Teaching Evaluations in Italy," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 811-835, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dilmaghani, Maryam, 2020. "Beauty perks: Physical appearance, earnings, and fringe benefits," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    2. Deryugina, Tatyana & Shurchkov, Olga, 2015. "Now you see it, now you don’t: The vanishing beauty premium," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 331-345.
    3. Astghik Mavisakalyan, 2016. "Looks matter: Attractiveness and employment in the former soviet union," Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre Working Paper series WP1604, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School.
    4. Mavisakalyan, Astghik, 2018. "Do employers reward physical attractiveness in transition countries?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 38-52.
    5. Eiji Yamamura & Ryohei Hayashi & Yoshiro Tsutsui & Fumio Ohtake, 2022. "Racers’ attractive looks, popularity, and performance: how do speedboat racers react to fans’ expectations?," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 73(4), pages 597-623, October.
    6. Ahmed, Shaker & Ranta, Mikko & Vähämaa, Emilia & Vähämaa, Sami, 2023. "Facial attractiveness and CEO compensation: Evidence from the banking industry," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    7. LIU Xing & SIERMINSKA Eva, 2014. "Evaluating the effect of beauty on labor market outcomes: A review of the literature," LISER Working Paper Series 2014-11, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    8. Kseniya Bortnikova, 2020. "Beauty and Productivity: A Meta-Analysis," Working Papers IES 2020/18, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jun 2020.
    9. Elif S. Filiz, 2022. "Does it Payoff to be Blond in a Non-Blond Neighborhood? Eye Color, Hair Color, Ethnic Composition and Starting Wages," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 122-146, January.
    10. Peng, Langchuan & Wang, Xi & Ying, Shanshan, 2020. "The heterogeneity of beauty premium in China: Evidence from CFPS," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 386-396.
    11. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Leigh, Andrew K., 2022. "“Beauty too rich for use”: Billionaires’ assets and attractiveness," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    12. Guodong Guo & Brad R. Humphreys & Qiangchang Wang & Yang Zhou, 2023. "Attractive or Aggressive? A Face Recognition and Machine Learning Approach for Estimating Returns to Visual Appearance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(6), pages 737-758, August.
    13. French, Michael T. & Robins, Philip K. & Homer, Jenny F. & Tapsell, Lauren M., 2009. "Effects of physical attractiveness, personality, and grooming on academic performance in high school," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 373-382, August.
    14. Olivier Gergaud & Victor Ginsburgh, 2010. "Success: Talent, Intelligence or Beauty?," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2010-046, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    15. Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd Stinebrickner & Paul Sullivan, 2019. "Beauty, Job Tasks, and Wages: A New Conclusion about Employer Taste-Based Discrimination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 602-615, October.
    16. Ying Cao & Feng Guan & Zengquan Li & Yong George Yang, 2020. "Analysts’ Beauty and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4315-4335, September.
    17. Deng, Weiguang & Li, Dayang & Zhou, Dong, 2019. "Beauty and Job Accessibility: New Evidence from a Field Experiment," GLO Discussion Paper Series 369, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    18. Henk Erik Meier & Michael Mutz, 2020. "Does Attractiveness Lead to or Follow From Occupational Success? Findings From German Associational Football," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    19. Seung Chan Ahn & Young Hoon Lee, 2014. "Beauty And Productivity: The Case Of The Ladies Professional Golf Association," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(1), pages 155-168, January.
    20. Chan, Ho Fai & Ulrich, Fabian & Altman, Hannah & Schmidt, Sascha L. & Schreyer, Dominik & Torgler, Benno, 2022. "Beyond performance? The importance of subjective and objective physical appearance in award nominations and receptions in football," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 271-289.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Discrimination; intelligence; hair color; blonde; brunette; beauty; wages; AFQT; IQ;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00602. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.