No relationship between intelligence and facial attractiveness in a large, genetically informative sample

作者：Mitchem Dorian G^*; Zietsch Brendan P; Wright Margaret J; Martin Nicholas G; Hewitt John K; Keller Matthew C

来源：Evolution and Human Behavior, 2015, 36(3): 240-247.

DOI：10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.11.009

• Facial attractiveness
• Intelligence
• Genetic correlation
• Fitness trait
• Evolutionary genetics
• Twin and family study

Theories in both evolutionary and social psychology suggest that a positive correlation should exist between facial attractiveness and general intelligence, and several empirical observations appear to corroborate this expectation. Using highly reliable measures of facial attractiveness and IQ in a large sample of identical and fraternal twins and their siblings, we found no evidence for a phenotypic correlation between these traits. Likewise, neither the genetic nor the environmental latent factor correlations were statistically significant. We supplemented our analyses of new data with a simple meta-analysis that found evidence of publication bias among past studies of the relationship between facial attractiveness and intelligence. In view of these results, we suggest that previously published reports may have overestimated the strength of the relationship and that the theoretical bases for the predicted attractiveness-intelligence correlation may need to be reconsidered.

• 出版日期2015-5