Well I am glad I mentioned yesterday how fulfilling I found all the creative projects I have been involved with over the course of my career. Today in The Atlantic, they had a story about three studies that found average looking men are judged more attractive if they are perceived as creative.
Now that I know this, I have some posts planned for upcoming weeks that should make me as appealing as the ever dapper Drew McManus.
Well, maybe I am over selling that point. According to the study,
Though the subjects always thought the physically more handsome men were more attractive, the more creative men seemed more attractive than the uncreative ones.
[…]
To Christopher Watkins, a professor of psychology at Scotland’s Abertay University and the author of the study, the results show that creativity can help boost the romantic and social prospects of average-looking men. Creativity, Watkins says, is a proxy for intelligence, and it signals the ability of your potential future mate or friend to solve tricky problems.
Unfortunately, there was a WTF moment in regard to creativity and women. In two of the three studies, being viewed as creative did not enhance attractiveness for females.
For women, two of the three experiments demonstrated that facial attractiveness enhanced their overall attractiveness to a greater extent than creativity (written expression and creative thinking) enhanced their overall attractiveness. Indeed, across these experiments, creativity weakened the appeal of women with less attractive faces and did not benefit their attractiveness when displayed by women with attractive faces.
However, the third trial using the same methodology contradicted the first two.
To Watkins, the fact that the third trial contradicted the first two helped him come to the “general conclusion” that creativity enhances all peoples’ attractiveness, “especially if they do not have an especially attractive face.” Though, as he writes in the study, further research is needed to firm up the gender effects.
Something I think important to note about these trials is that the creativity or lack thereof was presented in a very static way. People were shown pictures of men and women and then pictures or lists of things these people supposedly thought up. Those participating in the study made their judgements based on these elements.
There were no pictures of people actively doing something creative: acting, dancing, painting, writing, singing, reading etc. I have to think that at least half the appeal of creativity is observing or participating in the action. That probably doesn’t translate over well to making abstract connections between an image of a person and an image of results.
I am not discounting the article’s suggestion that there is an unfortunate bias against women you see as smarter, funnier or more successful than yourself. The act of imagining someone as creative probably does reveal personal biases. (Primarily, a lack of imagination) But I don’t think it is a good indication of how appealing you will be perceived when you are actually in the act of doing something creative.