颜值越高，成绩越好？​

颜值越高，成绩越好？是这么一回事吗。

经济学上有一个说法叫「Beauty Premium」，所谓的“美貌津贴/美貌溢价”，有研究发现颜值高似乎对收入有积极影响。是外貌歧视，还是什么原因呢？

那么，颜值对成绩有什么影响呢？疫情以来，线上课堂盛行，这种影响又是如何的呢？我们今天就一起来看看这篇发表于《Economics Letters》的研究。

🤔️小作业：

无注释原文：

Attractive female students no longer earned higher grades when classes moved online during COVID-19

From: PsyPost

New psychology findings suggest that attractive students earn higher grades in school, but for female students, this beauty premium disappears when classes are taught remotely. The findings were published in the journal Economic Letters.

A large body of research suggests that physical appearance has an impact on a person’s success. For example, attractive people tend to earn more money and report higher life satisfaction than less attractive people. Interestingly, scholars have yet to agree on the explanation behind this beauty premium.

One account suggests that the beauty advantage can be explained by discrimination. For example, employers may inherently favor attractive over unattractive workers. Another perspective suggests that beauty is a productivity-enhancing attribute. This view suggests that attractiveness lends itself to higher productivity, for example, through increased self-confidence.

“I’m interested in discrimination generally,” said Adrian Mehic, a graduate student at Lund University and the author of the new study. “In economics research, lots of attention is given to discrimination based on gender and/or race. While these are important issues, there has not been much research on beauty-based discrimination in the educational setting, so the paper fills a gap there.”

“Also, the pandemic made discrimination based on appearance much more difficult, since teachers could not readily see students’ faces. Whereas discrimination on for instance gender is possible in the online setting also, as long as you have the names of students.”

Mehic conducted a natural experiment to hopefully shed light on an explanation for the beauty premium. The study investigated the effect of student attractiveness on university grades during both in-person instruction and remote instruction. This design allowed the study author to better isolate the effect of appearance since student-teacher interaction is much lower during remote instruction compared to in-person instruction. Any attractiveness advantage observed during remote classes is more likely due to a productivity-enhancing effect rather than discrimination.

The researcher obtained data from five different cohorts of engineering students from a Swedish university, resulting in a final sample of 307 students. Notably, students in two of these cohorts had attended a portion of their classes remotely when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed instruction online. The content of these courses stayed the same, but lectures and seminars were conducted online.

Although students were encouraged to turn their video cameras on during lessons, it was not required. To obtain an attractiveness score for each student, Mehic had an independent sample of 74 individuals rate the attractiveness of the students’ faces.

When analyzing the data, Mehic first found evidence of the beauty premium in traditional in-person instruction. For non-quantitative courses (e.g., business, economics) that were taught fully online, student attractiveness was positively correlated with student grades. However, this effect was not found for quantitative courses (e.g., math, physics). This was in line with the researcher’s expectations since non-quantitative classes tend to include assignments and presentations that encourage student-teacher interaction, while quantitative classes are often graded entirely through final exams.

The results next revealed that the switch to online instruction eliminated the beauty premium — but only for female students. For non-quantitative courses, attractive female students saw a decline in their grades with remote instruction, while attractive male students continued to enjoy a beauty advantage.

According to the study author, these findings suggest that discrimination most likely explains the beauty premium for female students, who no longer had higher grades when classes turned remote. But for male students, who continued to see higher grades with attractiveness even when student-teacher interaction was low, beauty seems to be a productivity-enhancing attribute.

“The main takeaway is that there is a beauty premium both for males and for females when teaching is on-site,” Mehic explained. “But for females, this effect disappeared when teaching was conducted online. This, at least to me, suggests that the beauty premium for males is due to some productive attribute (for instance, them having higher self-confidence) rather than discrimination, whereas it is due to discrimination for women.”

“I was surprised by the fact that male students continued to perform better when teaching was online,” Mehic said. In his study, he discussed several reasons why physical attractiveness might enhance productivity for male students.

For one, male students who are physically attractive tend to be more persistent and have a greater influence on their peers. Attractive people also tend to have more social skills, which has been linked to creativity. Since non-quantitative courses tend to involve creative assignments and group work, men who are more attractive — and thus, more socially skilled and creative — might be more likely to excel in this coursework.

“It seems to be quite difficult for researchers to answer why people discriminate based on appearance,” Mehic added. “Probably, it’s because when we see an attractive person, we assign them some characteristics that they may not actually possess, such as intelligence. However, more research is required to establish precisely why this happens.”

The study, “Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching”, was published August 6, 2022.

- ◆ -

注：中文文本为机器翻译仅供参考，并非一一对应

含注释原文：

Attractive female students no longer earned higher grades when classes moved online during COVID-19

From: PsyPost

New psychology findings suggest that attractive students earn higher grades in school, but for female students, this beauty premium disappears when classes are taught remotely. The findings were published in the journal Economic Letters.

新的心理学结果表明，有吸引力的学生在学校获得更高的成绩，但是对于女学生来说，当线上上课时，这种“美貌溢价”就消失了。这项研究成果发表在《Economic Letters》期刊上。

premium /ˈpriːmɪəm/ 1）作形容词，表示“高昂的；优质的；高端的”，英文解释为“very high (and higher than usual); of high quality”，如：premium prices/products 奇高的价格；优质产品。

2）作名词，表示“奖金，津贴；加价；附加费”，英文解释为“A premium is a sum of money that you have to pay for something in addition to the normal cost.”举个🌰：

Even if customers want "solutions," most are not willing to pay a premium for them. 

即使顾客们想要“解决方案”，大部分人不愿意为此支付附加费。

A large body of research suggests that physical appearance has an impact on a person’s success. For example, attractive people tend to earn more money and report higher life satisfaction than less attractive people. Interestingly, scholars have yet to agree on the explanation behind this beauty premium.

大量研究表明，外貌对一个人的成功有影响。例如，有吸引力的人往往比不太有吸引力的人赚更多的钱，生活满意度更高。有趣的是，学者们还没有就这种“美貌溢价”背后的解释达成一致。

One account suggests that the beauty advantage can be explained by discrimination. For example, employers may inherently favor attractive over unattractive workers. Another perspective suggests that beauty is a productivity-enhancing attribute. This view suggests that attractiveness lends itself to higher productivity, for example, through increased self-confidence.

一种观点认为，美貌优势可以用歧视来解释。例如，雇主可能天生更喜欢有吸引力的员工。另一种观点认为，美貌是提高生产力的特性。这种观点认为，例如，吸引力有助于通过增强自信心来提高生产力。

表示“报道；报告；记述；描述”，英文解释为“a written or spoken description of an event”举个🌰：

She gave a thrilling account of her life in the jungle.

她把自己在丛林中生活的经历描述得惊险刺激。

表示“歧视；区别对待”，英文解释为“treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their skin colour, sex, sexuality, etc.”如：racial/sex/age discrimination 种族/性别/年龄歧视。

表示“天性地，内在地，固有地”，英文解释为“in a way that exists as a natural or basic part of something”

英式 favour  美式 favor 作动词，表示“优惠；偏袒；特别照顾”，英文解释为“to give an advantage to someone or something, in an unfair way”举个🌰：

A strong wind will favour the bigger boats.

强风对大船有利。

作名词，1）表示“特别照顾，优惠；偏袒”，英文解释为“an advantage that you give to someone, such as money or a good job, especially when this is unfair”举个🌰：

Several politicians were accused of dispensing favours to people who voted for them.

几名政客被指责向投票支持他们的人提供好处。

2）表示“赞同；较喜欢”，英文解释为“to support or prefer one particular possibility”举个🌰：

These are the running shoes favoured by marathon runners.

这些是马拉松选手喜爱的跑鞋。

表示“（思考问题的）角度，观点，想法”，英文解释为“a particular way of considering something”举个🌰：

Her attitude lends a fresh perspective to the subject.

她的态度为这一问题提供了新的视角。

enhance /ɪnˈhɑːns/ 表示“提高；增加；增强；增进”，英文解释为“to improve the quality, amount, or strength of something”举个🌰：

These scandals will not enhance the organization's reputation.

这些丑闻可不会提高这个组织的声誉。

表示“适合于，适宜于，有助于”，英文解释为“If something lends itself to something else, it is suitable for that thing or can be considered in that way.”举个🌰：

The novel's complex, imaginative style does not lend itself to translation.

小说复杂而充满想象力的风格无法翻译出来。

“I’m interested in discrimination generally,” said Adrian Mehic, a graduate student at Lund University and the author of the new study. “In economics research, lots of attention is given to discrimination based on gender and/or race. While these are important issues, there has not been much research on beauty-based discrimination in the educational setting, so the paper fills a gap there.”

“一般来说我对歧视的内容比较感兴趣，”隆德大学研究生、这项新研究的作者阿德里安·梅希奇（Adrian Mehic）说。“在经济学研究中，基于性别和/或种族的歧视受到了很多关注。尽管这些都是重要的问题，但在教育环境中基于美貌的歧视还没有太多研究，因此这篇论文填补了这方面的空白。”

“Also, the pandemic made discrimination based on appearance much more difficult, since teachers could not readily see students’ faces. Whereas discrimination on for instance gender is possible in the online setting also, as long as you have the names of students.”

“此外，疫情使得基于外貌的歧视变得更加困难，因为老师不能轻易看到学生的脸。然而在线上环境中，只要你有学生的名字，性别等歧视也是可能的。”

表示“尽管；但是；却”，英文解释为“compared with the fact that; but”举个🌰：

He must be about 40, whereas his wife looks about 30.

他肯定有40岁上下了，可他妻子看起来只有30岁左右。

Mehic conducted a natural experiment to hopefully shed light on an explanation for the beauty premium. The study investigated the effect of student attractiveness on university grades during both in-person instruction and remote instruction. This design allowed the study author to better isolate the effect of appearance since student-teacher interaction is much lower during remote instruction compared to in-person instruction. Any attractiveness advantage observed during remote classes is more likely due to a productivity-enhancing effect rather than discrimination.

梅希奇进行了一项自然实验，希望能阐明对“美貌溢价”的解释。这项研究调查了线下教学和线上教学中学生吸引力对大学成绩的影响。这种设计使研究作者能够更好地区分外表的影响，因为线上教学中的师生互动比线下教学低得多。在线上课堂观察到的任何吸引力优势更有可能是由于生产力提高的效果，而不是歧视。

cast/shed/throw light on sth 表示“使（问题等）较容易理解；为…提供解释；使…较容易理解；阐明；使…清楚地显出”，英文解释为“to make a problem, etc. easier to understand”举个🌰：

As an economist, he was able to shed some light on the problem.

作为经济学家，他能解释这个问题。

The researcher obtained data from five different cohorts of engineering students from a Swedish university, resulting in a final sample of 307 students. Notably, students in two of these cohorts had attended a portion of their classes remotely when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed instruction online. The content of these courses stayed the same, but lectures and seminars were conducted online.

研究人员从瑞典一所大学五组不同的工程学生中获得了数据，最终样本为307名学生。值得注意的是，当新冠疫情使得教学转移到线上时，其中两组学生线上参加了他们的一部分课程。这些课程的内容保持不变，但课堂和研讨会是在线进行的。

cohort /ˈkoʊ.hɔːrt/ 表示“有共同特点（通常指年龄）的一群人”，英文解释为“a group of people who share a characteristic, usually age”举个🌰：

This study followed up a cohort of 100 patients aged 65+ for six months after their discharge home.

这项研究对100位年龄在65岁以上、出院回家的患者进行了6个月的跟踪观察。

notably /ˈnəʊ.tə.bli/ 1）表示“格外地，特别地”，英文解释为“especially or most importantly”

2）表示“明显地；显然；值得注意地”，英文解释为“to an important degree, or in a way that can or should be noticed”

Although students were encouraged to turn their video cameras on during lessons, it was not required. To obtain an attractiveness score for each student, Mehic had an independent sample of 74 individuals rate the attractiveness of the students’ faces.

虽然鼓励学生在课堂上打开摄像头，但这不是必须的。为了获得每个学生的吸引力分数，梅希奇让一个由74人组成的独立样本对学生的面部吸引力进行评分。

When analyzing the data, Mehic first found evidence of the beauty premium in traditional in-person instruction. For non-quantitative courses (e.g., business, economics) that were taught fully online, student attractiveness was positively correlated with student grades. However, this effect was not found for quantitative courses (e.g., math, physics). This was in line with the researcher’s expectations since non-quantitative classes tend to include assignments and presentations that encourage student-teacher interaction, while quantitative classes are often graded entirely through final exams.

在分析数据时，梅希奇首先发现了传统线下教学中“美貌溢价”的证据。对于完全线上教授的非量化课程（如商业、经济学），学生吸引力与学生成绩呈正相关。然而，量化课程（如数学、物理）没有发现这种效果。这符合研究人员的预期，因为非量化课程往往包括鼓励师生互动的作业和演示，而量化课程通常完全通过期末考试评分。

quantitative /ˈkwɒn.tɪ.tə.tɪv/ 表示“定量的”，英文解释为“relating to numbers or amounts”如：quantitative analysis 定量分析。

The results next revealed that the switch to online instruction eliminated the beauty premium — but only for female students. For non-quantitative courses, attractive female students saw a decline in their grades with remote instruction, while attractive male students continued to enjoy a beauty advantage.

接下来的结果显示，转向线上教学消除了“美貌溢价”——但仅限于女学生。对于非量化课程，有吸引力的女学生在线上教学下成绩下降，而有吸引力的男学生继续享有容貌优势。

表示“排除；消除；清除”，英文解释为“to remove or take away someone or something”举个🌰：

A move towards healthy eating could help eliminate heart disease.

养成健康的饮食习惯有助于消除心脏病诱因。

According to the study author, these findings suggest that discrimination most likely explains the beauty premium for female students, who no longer had higher grades when classes turned remote. But for male students, who continued to see higher grades with attractiveness even when student-teacher interaction was low, beauty seems to be a productivity-enhancing attribute.

根据研究作者的说法，这些发现表明，歧视最有可能解释了女学生的“美貌溢价”，当课堂转向线上时，她们不再有更高的分数。但是对于男学生来说，即使在师生互动少的时候，有吸引力的男生仍能获得更高分数，美貌似乎是一种提高生产力的特性。

“The main takeaway is that there is a beauty premium both for males and for females when teaching is on-site,” Mehic explained. “But for females, this effect disappeared when teaching was conducted online. This, at least to me, suggests that the beauty premium for males is due to some productive attribute (for instance, them having higher self-confidence) rather than discrimination, whereas it is due to discrimination for women.”

“主要的启示是，在线下教学时，男生和女生都有‘美貌溢价’，”梅希奇解释道。“但对女性来说，线上教学时，这种影响消失了。至少对我来说，这表明男性的‘美貌溢价’是由部分生产力特性（例如，他们更自信）带来的，而非歧视，而对女性来说，则是由于歧视。”

表示“要点；从…中了解到的主要信息”，英文解释为“a main message or piece of information that you learn from something you hear or read”举个🌰：

The takeaway from the conference was how competitive the computer science industry has become.

这场会议的主要信息是计算机科学产业的竞争已变得非常激烈。

“I was surprised by the fact that male students continued to perform better when teaching was online,” Mehic said. In his study, he discussed several reasons why physical attractiveness might enhance productivity for male students.

梅希奇说：“线上教学时，男学生的表现依旧更好，这一事实让我感到惊讶。”在他的研究中，他讨论了外貌可能提高男生生产力的几个原因。

For one, male students who are physically attractive tend to be more persistent and have a greater influence on their peers. Attractive people also tend to have more social skills, which has been linked to creativity. Since non-quantitative courses tend to involve creative assignments and group work, men who are more attractive — and thus, more socially skilled and creative — might be more likely to excel in this coursework.

一方面，颜值高的男生往往更坚持不懈，对同龄人的影响力也更大。有吸引力的人也往往拥有更多的社交技能，这与创造力有关。由于非量化课程往往涉及创造性作业和小组任务，更有吸引力的男性——因此，更有社交技能和创造力——更有可能在这门课程中脱颖而出。

1）表示“持续的；存留的；顽强存在的”，英文解释为“lasting for a long time or difficult to get rid of”举个🌰：

Symptoms of the illness include a high temperature and a persistent dry cough.

病症包括高烧和持久的干咳。

2）表示“坚持不懈的；执意的”，英文解释为“Someone who is persistent continues doing something or tries to do something in a determined but often unreasonable way.”举个🌰：

Be persistent - don't give up.

要坚持不懈——别放弃。

表示“擅长；善于；突出”，英文解释为“to be very good at doing sth”举个🌰：

She has always excelled in foreign languages.

她的外语从来都是出类拔萃。

📍2019年政府工作报告中就提到：体育健儿在国际大赛上再创佳绩。Chinese athletes excelled themselves in international competitions.

🎬电影《热血警探》（Blue Fury）中的台词提到：Academically excelled in theoretical course work and final year examinations. 在校期间理论课成绩和年终测评均为优，

“It seems to be quite difficult for researchers to answer why people discriminate based on appearance,” Mehic added. “Probably, it’s because when we see an attractive person, we assign them some characteristics that they may not actually possess, such as intelligence. However, more research is required to establish precisely why this happens.”

“研究人员似乎很难回答为什么人们会根据外貌进行歧视，”梅希奇补充道。“可能是因为当我们看到一个有吸引力的人时，我们赋予他们一些他们实际上可能不具备的特征，比如智力。然而，还需要更多的研究来确定这种情况发生的确切原因。”

表示“拥有；具有”，英文解释为“to have or own something, or to have a particular quality”举个🌰：

I don't possess a single DVD (= I don't have even one DVD).

我一张DVD光盘都没有。

The study, “Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching”, was published August 6, 2022.

这项名为“线下教学和线上教学中的学生容貌和成绩”的研究于2022年8月6日发表。

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