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“Natural” rivers are actually man-made

Dig it: Companies run by CEOs with attractive faces tend to have higher profits, according to a pretty hilarious new study appearing in next month’s issue of Psychological Science. Psychologists Nicholas Rule and Nalini Ambady took a bunch of pictures of CEOs, put them into grayscale and standardized them in size, and then showed them to college students. The students were given no other information about the CEOs — they weren’t even told which companies they ran. With nothing other than the picture to go on, the students were asked to rate the CEOs according to their apparent “competence, dominance, likeability, facial maturity and trustworthiness.”
The upshot? CEOs who scored high on the Am-I-Hot-Or-Not ratings turned out to be piloting the most profitable companies. As a press release notes:
“These findings suggest that naive judgments may provide more accurate assessments of individuals than well-informed judgments can,” wrote the authors. “Our results are particularly striking given the uniformity of the CEOs’ appearances.” The majority of CEOs, who were selected according to their Fortune 1000 ranking, were Caucasian males of similar age.
We could, of course, regard this as a sterling example of “Science Confirms The Obvious.” I mean, in modern America, is this news? That attractive, confident-looking white dudes are where it’s at? And this comes on the heels of dozens of recent studies of hot-ology, which have demonstrated time and time again that tall, willowy, cocksure white folks are cleaning everyone else’s clocks. It also fits neatly into Malcolm Gladwell’s thesis in Blink — i.e. that first impressions are of enormous importance.
Nonetheless, we are, as the scientists note, left with the chicken-and-egg question: “which came first, the powerful-looking CEO or their successful career?”
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map
Should automobile software be open-sourced?
My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”
Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”
» visit the Collision Detection archives
January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A. Certainly.
M. Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A. So it appears to me.
M. Then all are miserable?
A. Every one.
January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM
One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
)
January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM
BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.
January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM
“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)
January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM
I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.
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