Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?

What an interesting journal written by Jaeger on the topic of how beauty affects society and success.  Jaeger acknowledges that success is dependent on the usual subjects of socio-economic background and IQ and personality traits but what he expounds on are the physical attractiveness, height and weight, and BMI.  He states that previous research is very limiting because is only has used a "snapshot" of data and collected one point or age or group at a time.  For example, studies such as graduates of West Point have shown that those that had "dominant" traits had higher military rankings.  He also states that the existing research tend to focus on one type of outcome ( psychological, marital, labor market, etc) when defining success rather than include all types of dimensions.  Furthermore, he expounds that aspects such as physical attractiveness, BMI, and height and weight have also been studied individually rather than collectively in the same analysis.  Control is also an issue that he explains in previous research when defining success and such traits as family background and endowments and how they influence the effects of beauty.  His main points of the article surround the theoretical background which includes the evolutionary and social psychology, and constructionist theories in previous research which he in my opinion, bases his argument or point around.  What makes his article so different and better, is that he goes beyond and narrows down the research.  As stated before, most researchers only did a "snapshot" of people which can cause a bias to their research because they can gear it towards what they are saying.  Jaeger studied late teens all the way until their mid-60s.  This is a huge plus because it shows how beauty affects socio-economic success throughout someones life and truly gives an insight to how it can shape and change throughout the course.  He also uses people that have graduated from high school as the only requirement whereas previous research had used specific groups such as MBA lawyers or West Point graduates.  This was also a positive because it allowed for a wide range of opportunity to prove what he was saying.  He also describes the differences between men and women in their view of beauty and success where before researchers did not differentiate.  Men and women do approach beauty and what they view as physical attractiveness very differently and are not equal when defining success.  This article supports all research that says beauty is significantly important to success and how people view one another.  He shows how people hold attractiveness as a "high" quality and those that are, are better off in all aspects of their lives.  It is not rather surprising that society equates beauty with success.  Humanity puts a great deal of stock in beauty, and, despite its constantly evolving definition, people have a markedly biased opinion regarding “beautiful” people.  One important term that Jaeger uses is the "halo effect"which causes society to correlate beauty with nothing but positive characteristics.  He also says that people who marry or associate with "beautiful" people. they too are now held at a higher regard, something I view as very sad but important in research because this I believe skews it.  In my opinion, in the end, while looks do play a significant role in our lives and careers, beauty is not the only contributing factor to success. Aristotle may have claimed that “beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction,” but it’s always wise to remember the often-quoted but still-true cliché, “Beauty is only skin deep"; if only the research supported that.

Are u writing to me????

     After reading “Success, Coping, and Social Exclusion”, I feel that the writer did not have a certain group in mind to who he/she was writing to.  She went in great depth of explaining every last thing to the reader which makes me assume that the writer was assuming that the reader was naive in the topic.  Muck like myself when I was writing on my discourse community, my audience was open-ended because I was to assume that the readerhad no clue of the Catholic community.  I also believe that the audience was anyone who picked up the article because of the five interviews she used.  Each interview was relatable to someone on some level.  There was a reason that she used the diversity of the five out of 61 possible interviews.  At first, I did not agree with how the article was put together but after taking a deeper look, it made sense.  The writer first explained the theory and/or theories that were going to be discussed and then followed up with real life experience stories to collaborate with those theories.  I relate it to to myself if I were to write an article to my fellow classmates stating that I believe the sky to be purple.  I would have to go into very simple but explored resaoning as to why I think this to be.  I would then follow up with people that have experienced the sky to be purple and how that has changed what they have thought in the past.  The writer pulls us in with simplicity and then keeps our attention with the reader wanting to know what the writer has gone on about for so many pages.  If the writer were to have put the interviews at the beginning, the article would not have made sense, and left the reader wondering how credible the writer actually was.  The writer also relies on the emotional side of the article in involving the different interviews.  Their unique social networks in correlation with success provide an emotional appeal to the reader which makes the reader want to understand further.  I believe this is a schoarly article and was meant to students, teachers, and people wanting to know more about success and social capital; very much like Gladwell did. However, it made me wonder if this were to be related to the United States.  I think that the youth in this nation don't rely on the social and cultural capital in the terms that we dont strive to achieve what it takes to learn and be respected on that level, like that of a European country like Finland.  So I wonder if the writer had that in mind when writing this.  I believe that this article is important to the youth studies genre because again like Glad well it looks at the social and cultual coping of what environment you were placed in that you went on to be successful or not; the domino effect once again rears its ugly head.   

And so the bell tolls......

     After reading this article,  I immediately had to take a look at the meaning of a "bell curve".  The term referring to the shape of a normal distribution graph, which bulges in the middle and narrows at the edges. The majority of people, being of average intellect, form the bulge in the middle, while the low and high achievers make up the bell's edges.  What is even more interesting was that society has somehow relied on the bell curve as measurement for people in any aspect of life, specifically education, and where you end up on that bell curve impacted the rest of your life and your "success".  This article struck a nerve just like Gladwell did with the theory of how being born at the "opportune" time influenced the rest of your life with success.  So based on the testing of your IQ influences everything else that would follow, such as college, job and so on without taking into consideration all the other factors such as emotional, social or economic status.  Treating everyone the same and testing regardless of all these things severely hinders the education process and therefore hinders the possibility of success.  This excerpt supporting this from the article really resonated with me, "under a bell curve, teachers are expected to direct their lessons to a fiction called the Average Student, despite the fact that no student actually embodies the characteristics of that statistically generated average. Teaching based on bell-curve assumptions effectively misses the learning needs of every student, defeats motivation by guaranteeing the expectation of failure, and fosters cheating because of administrative pressures to raise test scores."  People coming from different backgrounds with different learning processes are all to be judged and their life determined by a universal test and universal education system?  No wonder why in the United States, a kid drops out of school every 9 seconds, not being able to fit into the mold and hopefully land in the bell of the curve is a lot of pressure.
     It does seems obvious that intelligence is important to succeed in life, but it also seems obvious that social factors play a large, if not larger, role.  For example, I don't think it is a coincidence that the unemployment rate is higher for those without a college education, but economic and social disparities play a role in not being able to receive that college education, not simply an IQ test or the positive or negative education received.  It is simple, intelligence is only one factor among the countless factors that contributes to success.  I seem to go back to the "nature vs. nurture" debate again after reading this article. For example, do I think that I should be tested the same being a suburban white girl that was raised in a middle class home with both parents as a black man that is from a very poor community with only one parent at home?  Is it fair if I score higher and affect the curve?  Am I even smarter or are the circumstances just different and is he at an automatic disadvantage?  Does a standardized test really measure our IQ?  It seems that those such tests are pre-historic nowadays.  Education and society has changed so much,  I feel like we should have a better way to educate different cultures as well as measure intelligence.  Just because a student is a poor test taker, does that mean that success will never happen for them because they are on the low end of the bell curve?  Take a look at the national average ACT score, they range from state to state.  So are the smarter kids in certain states?  Is there a smart state?  It's ridiculous to even say that, let alone think it.
Social factors predict future success far better than IQ; where you come from, the available resources along with education, the exposure to knowledge,etc. etc. etc..... and let's not forget the most important factor, just simple dumb luck-a factor completely out of our control yet is the most important factor in determining success.