Discover more from Overcoming Bias
My son took me to see a high school play recently, and I noticed that among the cast, the pretty/handsome/hot kids had the lead roles, and the cast was on average prettier than the supporting crew. I mentioned this to my wife, who was in drama club in high school, and she told me this was one of those things everyone knew – others would try out, but the prettiest kids were favored. The effect is strong, stronger than could be explained by a weak correlation between acting ability and prettiness.
If viewers prefer to watch pretty people, I can understand why commercial plays would favor the pretty. But I was surprised to see such transparent favoritism in what is supposedly an "educational" activity. I doubt parents would knowingly tolerate a high school math teacher giving higher grades to the pretty; why do they tolerate similar behavior from drama teachers?
My wife tells me that choir teachers favor pretty singers for choirs when many people will listen, but not when only a few will listen. Perhaps this is about parents and teachers wanting to make their school’s students look good in all ways compared to other schools?
Why Pretty HS Play Leads?
Although the thread is old, I tought I will still post my views.
Math, Science are far more objective fields than Drama. In Drama rather than encouring real talent, teachers (especially middle and high school) give too much importance to marketing or prettiness (unjustified). Thats' where the Drama field is failing. If teachers are more logical or rational, I believe Drama will see better days, better talent and better audinece.I tell my kids, if you want better life stay with Science and Math and keep Drama , Signing as side dish/hobby. Getting job in Drama is so difficult and the baised producers make it more difficult.
Bruce, in my post I acknowledged there may be the effect you describe, but claimed it was not plausibly strong enough to account for the effect I see.