Looking Smart May Be Enough to Determine Intelligence in Males
Published at
Pixland/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Figuring out if someone is smart or not by simply looking at their face may not seem like the best way to determine intelligence but researchers from the Czech Republic believe that it’s not all that far-fetched.
Karel Kleisner of Charles University in Prague says the catch is that, for whatever reason, it’s easier to tell if a man is smart just by their facial appearance rather than a woman.
To make their assessment, Kleisner and his researchers had 160 participants rate photos of 80 Czech university men and women for intelligence and attractiveness and then averaged the scores.
According to Kleisner, “Our raters (men and women alike) were able to estimate intelligence with an accuracy higher than chance from static facial photographs of men, but not from photos of women.”
But why is that? Kleisner admits the results were puzzling, guessing that perhaps people take all the features of a man’s face into consideration when seeking clues about their intelligence. He says even more clinically that it could be “due to some genetic and developmental association to sex-steroid hormonal agents during puberty.”
As for why it was difficult evaluating women, Kleisner speculates that perhaps humans have been genetically conditioned to judge females predominantly by their attractiveness.
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio