We conduct beauty contest experiments, using close to 2,000 subjects. … We use pairs of photographs and find that subjects rate CEO faces as appearing more “competent” and less “likable” than non-CEO faces. Another experiment matches CEOs from large firms against CEOs from smaller firms and finds large-firm CEOs look more competent and likable. …We find that executive compensation is linked to these perceived “competence” ratings. … [This] can be explained by a quantitative scoring of the “maturity” or “baby-facedness” of the CEO. That is, more mature looking CEOs are assigned higher “competence” scores. … We find no evidence that the firms of competent looking CEOs perform better. (
baby-faced = less testosterone = a decreased social intuition, more cautious approach to decision making and very future time oriented ..Is this always a good thing? not necessarily .. if there is a lot of uncertainty in the future .. a higher testosterone person would be preferred .. I predict that better performing baby faced CEOs were involved in highly niche stable markets ..
Come on, we know that beautiful people are smarter people... maybe competence is in the face, too.
baby-faced = less testosterone = a decreased social intuition, more cautious approach to decision making and very future time oriented ..Is this always a good thing? not necessarily .. if there is a lot of uncertainty in the future .. a higher testosterone person would be preferred .. I predict that better performing baby faced CEOs were involved in highly niche stable markets ..