Beautiful people are indeed happier, a new study says, but not always for the same reasons. For handsome men, the extra kicks are more likely to come from economic benefits, like increased wages, while women are more apt to find joy just looking in the mirror. “Women feel that beauty is inherently important, ” says Daniel Hamermesh, a University of Texas at Austin labor economist and the study’s lead author. “They just feel bad if they’re ugly.”
一项新的研究表明，外表漂亮的人的确会更快乐，尽管他们高兴的原因不是始终一样。长的帅气的男性，往往会获得额外的经济收益，比如得到加薪；而女士们仅仅照照镜子，就更容易感到愉快。德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校(University of Texas at Austin)的劳动经济学家Daniel Hamermesh是这项研究的第一作者，他说：“女性认为美丽至关重要。如果她们不美，就会感觉很糟糕。”
Hamermesh is the acknowledged father of pulchronomics, or the economic study of beauty. It can be a perilous undertaking. He once enraged an audience of young Mormon women, many of whom aspired to stay home with future children, by explaining that homemakers tend to be homelier than their working-girl peers. (Since beautiful women tend to be paid more, they have more incentive to stay in the work force, he says.) “I see no reason to mince words, ” says the 69-year-old, who rates himself a solid 3 on the 1-to-5 looks scale that he most often uses in his research.
Hamermesh是著名的“美貌经济学”（pulchronomics，或者也称为美貌经济研究） 之父。这个研究可能是个危险的任务。有一次，他解释说家庭主妇往往没有身在职场的朋友们漂亮，就激怒了一位年轻的摩门教女观众，因为很多摩门教女性都希望以后在家中教育孩子。（他说，因为美丽的女性薪水更高，她们就会更受鼓励留在职场。）这位69岁的学者说：“我并不觉得有必要矫饰言辞”。他常在研究中使用来1-5分评价外貌等级，而且他将自己评为3分。
The pursuit of good looks drives several mammoth industries—in 2010, Americans spent $845 million on face-lifts alone—but few economists focused on beauty’s financial power until the mid-1990s, when Hamermesh and his colleague, Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University, became the first scholars to track the effect of appearance on earnings potential for a large sample of adults. Like many other desirable commodities, “beauty is scarce, ” Hamermesh says, “and that scarcity commands a price.”
对亮丽外表的追求驱动了几个庞大的产业。2010年，美国人仅在面部整形上就花费了8.45亿美元。但很少有经济学家着眼于美丽的经济力量，直到90年代中期，Hamermesh和同事密歇根州立大学（Michigan State University）的Jeff Biddle成为首批通过大量成人实例，追踪外表对薪酬潜力影响的学者。同其他吸引人的商品一样，“美丽是稀少的，而稀缺性决定价格。”
A handsome man is poised to make 13 percent more during his career than a “looks-challenged” peer, according to calculations in Hamermesh’s recent book, Beauty Pays. (Interestingly, the net benefit is slightly less for comely women, who may make up the difference by trading on their looks to marry men with higher earning potential.) And some studies have shown that attractive people are more likely to be hired in a recession.
根据Hamermesh的新书《美貌买单》中的数据，在事业上，英俊的男性可能比长相平平的同事多拿到13的报酬。（有意思的是，秀丽的女性拿到的净收益略低于这些男性，她们可能会利用美貌，嫁给收入潜力更高的男性，并以此来弥补和英俊男性的差距。）一些研究表明，经济衰退时期，有魅力的人更可能会被聘用。
“Lookism” extends into professions seemingly detached from aesthetics. Homely quarterbacks earn 12 percent less than their easy-on-the-eyes rivals. “Hot” economics professors—designated by the number of chili peppers awarded on Ratemyprofes-sors.com—earn 6 percent more than members of their departments who fail to garner accolades along these lines.
“外貌主义”的影响延伸到了一些似乎和美学无关的职业中。不太帅气的橄榄球四分卫比潇洒英俊的竞争对手少拿12%的薪水。按照Ratemyprofes-sors.com 上获得的红辣椒数量，“火辣”的经济学教授则比未达到此标准的部门同事多赚得6%。
Hamermesh argues that there’s not much we can do to improve our pulchritude. There are even studies suggesting that for every dollar spent on cosmetic products, only 4 cents returns as salary—making lipstick a truly abysmal investment.
Hamermesh表示，在提升美貌方面，人们能做的也很少。甚至有研究表明，花在化妆品上的每一美元中，只有四美分以薪水的形式回到我们手中，这样来看唇膏简直是最糟糕的投资。
But inborn beauty isn’t always lucrative. One 2006 study showed that the unbecoming may actually profit from their lack of looks. People tend to expect less from the unattractive, so when they surpass those low expectations they are rewarded. And the pulchritudinous are often initially held to a higher standard—then hit with a “beauty penalty” if they fail to deliver. “You might see this as wages being depressed over time, ” says Rick K. Wilson, a Rice University political scientist who co-authored the study. “We have these really high expectations for attractive people. By golly, they don’t often live up to our expectations.”
但天生的美丽也不总是有利的。一份2006年的研究显示，长相欠佳的人实际上可能会从外貌缺陷中受益。对于没什么吸引力的人，人们的期望往往也要少，所以如果他们超出了这种低期望，就会得到奖励。而且漂亮的人经常从一开始就被要求达到更高的标准，如果失败了，就会受到“美丽的惩罚”。共同参与研究的莱斯大学（Rice University）的政治学家Rick K. Wilson说：“你能见到这种情况的实例，比如随着时间增长工资却变低了。我们对有魅力的人确实有相当高的期望。天哪，他们经常让我们的期望落空。”
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