Facing the facts on ability

IT has long been said you can be blinded by beauty and a new academic study suggests there is truth in the old adage.

Psychologist Sean Talamas, of St Andrews University, said that experts who ignore the beauty factor may actually be able to predict academic performance simply by looking at students’ faces.

But in a study of 100 students, he found an inherent bias towards attractive people that can limit people’s ability to accurately assess academic performance.

He warned this could have worrying implications because perceptions of how well someone might do academically can have a real impact on their future performance.

He said: “The utility of perceived conscientiousness in predicting how well students do aligns with other research showing that it is how hard students work, rather than their IQ, that is the best predictor of academic grades. But the bigger story is that there is no accuracy at all unless you control for attractiveness bias.”