Psychological studies have shown that attractive people have higher life satisfaction than others. For men, there was a strong and direct effect of objective beauty on life satisfaction. For women, the effect was weaker and indirect, with self-esteem and emotional stability playing key roles.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-asymmetric-brain/202603/being-attractive-makes-men-happier-than-women

25 Comments

  1. KEY POINTS

    Psychological studies have shown that attractive people have higher life satisfaction than others.

    A new study investigated the role of gender for the link between attractiveness life satisfaction.

    For men, there was a strong and direct effect of objective beauty on life satisfaction.

    For women, the effect was weaker and indirect, with self-esteem and emotional stability playing key roles.

    For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

    https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-08035-6_12

  2. hidden_secret on

    Yet another proof that even women that aren’t ‘beautiful’ can lead a satisfying life. It’s harder for an ugly man.

  3. isn’t self esteem for women also based on appearance though?I feel they’re saying mostly the same thing but with prettier words

  4. Capable-Grab5896 on

    The biggest part of that headline is psychologists apparently discovered what “objective beauty”, which has haunted philosophers for millennia, means.

  5. Routine-Sky-5529 on

    Makes sense 

    Being an attractive  dude  gives you almost everything need outside of money (tho looks can still you an edge here) hence why looksmaxxing is so big.

    For women tho it’s different because men and other women can act strange or just threatening to them. While this can happen to men also it’s only gonna be from other men and less likely to effect them.

  6. One thing that these studies don’t address is that being attractive can a lot of the times be a result of being happy not the other way around. When one is happy they take care of themselves physically

  7. When you consider what women do to stand out, you would need to control that compared to what men do.

    Makeup, plastic surgery, etc means its a much more competitive field. Most attractive men aren’t spending over an hour every morning just putting their eyelashes on.

  8. The_Best_Yak_Ever on

    It’s easy to get the impression that the world is a great place filled with people who are almost all basically good. People treat you very well, especially women, if you’re a good looking man. Guys will also be pretty cool to you as well.

    Learning that that’s not how everyone experiences the world and other people, is jarring. Especially if you never had any clue you were being treated differently.

    So when you read that “men don’t get compliments” on Reddit, with so many guys insisting it’s true, but you are used to strangers, especially women, complimenting you and flirting, it’s easy to assume they’re just doing something wrong or must be being weird, because “women aren’t as cold and dismissive as that…”

    I guess it should be an obvious thing, but there’s nuance to the headline.

  9. Please let’s keep studying this, I’m not sure unattractive people are miserable enough

  10. hyperproliferative on

    ….. if you dig into it, this is just one chapter of a whole book series about beauty and sexuality and inequity. It’s amazing the level and depth and rigor they have ascribed to this topic and while I can’t track down the funding sources, I really struggle to see where the broader value proposition is, even within the field of sociology. Idk maybe in the era of social media influence they’re really on to something, but they don’t seem to cover that topic or anything tangentially related to it.

  11. As someone who is formerly obese, i can say for certain that i was treated much differently (poorly) than now in terms of peoples demeanor.

    Now in the case of someone who is physically attractive, there are doors that open. From hiring managers choosing them over someone who might he better qualified. And if the attractive person doesnt want to work a 9-5, they can be a social media influencer or adult content creator since you dont need to rely on studios to do that sort of work anymore.

  12. Anecdotally, last summer when I lost 50lbs the difference was night and day even with long-time friends.

  13. Threecatproblem on

    I despise thee ridiculous “studies” that spend time, effort, and likely money to tell us what we already intuitively knew!

  14. >This suggests that, especially for women, improving self-esteem and emotional resilience are key factors for a happy life, while focusing only on physical attractiveness may not be the best recipe for long-lasting happiness.

    Gotta love how they end with this, but conspicuously avoid pointing out what the corresponding takeaway for men is.