Varför är det viktigt att en man har ett bra självförtroende?

...Sen så är det ofta så, att personer med dålig självkänsla är extremt egofixerade (ja, faktiskt) och hela tiden tror att andra tittar på dem, har åsikter om dem, de ägnar sig åt navelskådning och analyserande av vad andra människor betraktar som helt normala företeelser. Detta gör att de ofta inte känns avslappnade, inte kan bjuda på sig själva, inte har självdistans och humor nog att vara roliga eller intressanta och därför är väldigt tråkiga och jobbiga att umgås med. Om de dessutom är nervösa och blyga så blir de ännu tråkigare och mer krävande att vara tillsammans med och de lägger ofta över allt ansvar för att umgänget ska bli trevligt på andra människor eftersom de själva är för rädda för att "göra fel" så de inte vågar göra något alls...

...När det gäller män - kvinnor och attraktion, så är det manliga idealet idag, fortfarande, att mannen ska vara manlig och kunna leda kvinnan. En person med dåligt självförtroende och dålig självkänsla är ofta en dålig ledare och ingen man som kvinna får lust att följa. Det är oattraktivt, helt enkelt.

Studies have shown that attractive people are usually hired sooner, get promotions more quickly, and are paid more than their less-attractive coworkers.

Attractive people earn an average of 3 or 4 percent more than people with below-average looks, according to Daniel Hamermesh, professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin and author of the book "Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful."

Researchers have studied the concept of beauty as a factor in a person’s success over and over again, and in multiple ways. Beautiful people tend to bring in more money for their companies, and are therefore seen as more valuable employees and harder workers, according to an article in Psychology Today by Dario Maestripieri, a professor of comparative human development, evolutionary biology, and neurobiology at the University of Chicago. A door-to-door insurance salesman is better able to sell to customers who find him attractive, says Maestripieri, because the customers will be more likely to buy if they think it will increase their chances to have sex with him. Maestripieri calls this principle “the pleasure of dealing with good-looking people.”

“Good-looking people are more appealing as potential sex partners,” Maestripieri says, “and [so] other people choose to interact with them, to spend time near them, talk with them, buy insurance from them, and hire them as employees.”

Hamermesh, however, believes that it's not just the sex appeal that makes attractive people more successful. He writes that attractive people tend to have desirable personality traits, like higher self-confidence—likely a direct result of their good looks—that appeal to employers.

“Beauty may just reflect reflect self-esteem. Perhaps people’s self-confidence manifests itself in their behavior, so that their looks are rated more highly, and their self-esteem makes them more desirable and higher-paid employees,” he writes. “Another possibility is that beauty and the attractiveness of one’s personality are positively related, and that it is the general sparkle of one’s personality, not one’s beauty, that increases earnings.”

Researchers at Rice University and the University of Houston also conducted a study on beauty’s effect on success. They limited their study to how facial appearance affects excellence in a job interview. The study found that people with facial blemishes and “disfigurements”—birthmarks, scars, blemishes—were more likely to be rated poorly by their interviewers. The interviewers tended to recall less information about these candidates’, which negatively impacted their evaluations.

“The more the interviewers attended to stigmatized features on the face, the less they remembered about the candidate’s interview content, and the less memory they had about the content led to decreases in ratings of the applicant,” said Juan Madera, a professor at the University of Houston and co-author of the study.

WSJ: You show that good looks are even more influential for men's earnings than for women's. Why do men's good looks pay off more?

Mr. Hamermesh: There are two reasons. First, not as many women work for pay as men. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics says just 59% of adult women hold paying jobs in the workforce, compared with 73% of men.) If you are unattractive and you know you are going to be penalized for that, and if you have an option to stay out of the job market, you as a woman may choose not to bear that pain. Also, women in general are paid less than men; part of it is that they channel themselves into different occupations, and part of it is pure discrimination.

WSJ: What about the argument that better-looking people tend to sell more products or attract more new customers?

Mr. Hamermesh: Yes, [research] shows that happens. Better-looking workers bring in more for the employers, just as a more intelligent worker will. Paying them more is still a form of discrimination, but their attractiveness also tends to raise their productivity. That's what makes it so difficult. I would argue that this is discrimination. But others would argue that it's simply an indulgence of people's tastes and preferences.

WSJ: If you are unattractive, what can you do to improve your odds of getting paid well?

Mr. Hamermesh: Looks are only one of many things that affect how much we earn, including education, age, health, company size and so on. But to your question: First, don't go into an occupation where looks matter a lot. Don't be a TV broadcaster; be a radio broadcaster. Don't be a movie actor. Most important, go into fields that you enjoy, and that you have an advantage in doing. Accentuate your strengths, and try to avoid those things where you are relatively disadvantaged.

WSJ: Are there examples of occupations where you don't have to be beautiful?

Mr. Hamermesh: You would think you could find examples of occupations where being unattractive wouldn't hurt you at all. But in every one I have looked at, being better looking helps you. For example, you wouldn't think it would matter much if you are teaching in college. But based on my studies, better-looking [professors] are more appreciated by their students. The only counter-example I've seen is a study showing that if you [commit] armed robbery or theft, it pays to be uglier. The white-collar criminals are more successful if they are better-looking, but for crimes involving force, I'd rather be an ugly robber because I'd scare the guys and they'd give me their money faster.

WSJ: Isn't this unfair?

Mr. Hamermesh: Yes.

WSJ: Should something be done about it?

Mr. Hamermesh: It's a complicated issue. On one hand, I don't view this as very different from other forms of discrimination, whether it is based on race, gender or certainly disability; discrimination based on disability is analogous. Given that similarity, I find it very hard to oppose offering protections and trying to remove this kind of discrimination. On the other hand, we may not want the government to get involved, because if officials intervene on behalf of unattractive people, they will end up doing less for other groups which are regarded as more deserving.

Italian researchers sent more than 10,000 resumes out, using the same one and changing only first-name, last-name, address, and the photo included to test ethnic and regional biases as well as the impact of beauty.

The average callback rate was 30% across all of the CVs sent out. For attractive women, it was 54%, and for attractive men, 47%.

Unattractive women had by far the worst results, with a 7% callback rate. Unattractive men had a 26% rate.

The callback rates for resumes from non-Italians were lower, 13% for men and 12% for women, though the results testing for attractiveness were more statistically significant.

Regional differences weren't substantial.

The study mirrors the results of another study using a similar design, titled "The Labor Market Return to an Attractive Face: Evidence from a Field Experiment," from researchers looking at Argentina.

There, attractive people had a 36% higher callback rate than unattractive ones, with no variation in qualification. That study used the same photos in different resumes, digitally modifying faces to make them scientifically less attractive.

In the past, attractiveness was more of a factor once you got past the initial review to an interview, especially in countries where it isn't common to attach a headshot to job applications.