Attractiveness, athleticism, studiousness, brillance, and wealth*

GARY HODO, CATHRYN WHITFIELD,MAGGIE BURKHALTER, and WARNER WILSON

University ofAlabama. University, Ala. 35486.

Thirteen college males and 13 college females ranked16 possible combinations of four dichotomous traits :athletic vs non-athletic, studious vs nonstudious, brillantvs average, and wealthy vs not wealthy. Each variableexerted a significant effect (p < .01 ).

Tannenbaum (1960) examined the preferences of highschool students considering dimensions of brilliant vsaverage, studious vs nonstudious , and athletic vsnonathletic. Studies such as Tannenbaum's cancontribute to our understanding of why people like ordislike other people. Such studies may also suggest whatqualities a person should ' cultivate, and/or reveal, tomaximize their popularity. The present study replicatedTannenbaum's study with 26 college students and addedthe dimension of wealthy vs not wealthy.

METHODThe Ss were 13 males and 13 females enrolled in introductory

psychology . They examined a typed sheet that presented the 16possible combinations of the four dichotomous traits andassigned a rank of 1 to 16 to each combination.

The 16 ranks assigned by each S were transformed to T scores(Walker & Lev, 1953, p. 480) and the data were then subjectedto a 2 by 2 by 2 by 2 by 2 analysis of variance, the fivedichotomous variables being male vs female, athletic vsnonathletic. studious vs nonstudious, intelligent vs average, andwealthy vs not wealthy .

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONAn analysis of variance (Table 1) showed that all four

trait dimens ions exerted effects significant at least at the.0 1 level. The mean T scores given in Table 2 show thatan athletic male is preferred over a nonathletic one , astudious male is preferred over a nonstudious one , abrilliant male is preferred over an average one , and awealthy male is preferred over a not wealthy one bythese college students. There were no exceptions to theregularity of these main effects . Differences between theratings made by men and women were small andnonsignificant. For this reason , the analysis (Table 1)was repeated on the whole sample .

Table 2 includes the results of Tannenbaum's (1960)study for the sake of comparison. The present resultsagree with those of Tannenbaum only in that they showthat being athletic is consistently desirable irrespectiveof other traits. This result also agrees with that ofHorowitz (1967), who found interest in sportscorrelated with popularity . The present study shows thatcollege students view studiousness as desirable , while

·The first three authors carried out the study while enrolledin a directed research course under the direction of the fourthauthor.

Bull. Psychon. Soc ., 1973. VoL 2 (3)

Table 1Analysis of Variance Showing the Main Effects

of the Four Dichotomous Traits

Source df F

Athleticism 1 81.60Studiousness 1 107.11Brilliance 1 61.37Wealth 1 28.70Error 400 (56.59)

Note- This table omits all nonsignificant (interaction) effects.

Tannenbaum 's results indicated that high schoolstudents viewed studiousness as undesirable. The presentstudy shows that college students view brilliance asdesirable, while Tannenbaum's study showed no maineffect of brilliance but an interaction with studiousness,brill iance being viewed as desirable when combined withnonstudiousness and as undesirable when combined withstudiousness.

This study is like most studies of personalityimpression formation in that the E attributed more orless favorable adjectives to hypothetical third persons.Much has been done on both empirical and theoreticallevels (see, for example, Anderson, 1971 ; Kaplan &

Table 2Mean Rank and Rank Order Received by

Each Trait Combination

NotWealthy Wealthy

Trait Mean Rank Mean Rank RankCombination Rank Order Rank Order Order*

BrilliantStudious 2.88 4.38 4AthleticAverageStudious 5.85 2 8.04 4 3AthleticBrilliantNonstudious 6.19 3 8.00 3AthleticAverageNonstudious 9.12 6 10.38 6 2AthleticBrilliantStudious 6.42 4 7.27 2 8NonathleticAverageStudious 8.42 5 10.35 5 7NonathleticBrilliantNonstudious 10.23 7 12.62 7 5NonathleticAverageNonstudious 11.85 8 14.00 8 6Nonathletic

"Tannenbaum, J960

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Anderson. 1971) to devel op insights that would enableus to pra ise our friends so that others would like them .The not-too-surprising conclusion would seem to be thatthe best technique is to simply present them aspositivel y as possible by attributing to them as man yhighl y favo rable things as you can think of.

Another quest ion has rece ived little , if any . att en tion.Could the same technique be used to present oneself toothers? Would first-person praise or self-praise be aseffective as third-person praise?

There would seem to be tw o main theories ofpersonality impression formation relevant to such issues .One is the information integration model developed b yAnderson (An derson . 1971 : Kaplan & Anderson , 1971)and the other is the reinforcement model developed byByrne (Byrne , 1969 : Byrne & Clore , 1970). Neither ofthese theories seems to make any specific predictionab out first - vs third-person pra ise ; but , moreimportantly , neither would seem in any way to deny thepossibility that first-person praise might work. Theempirical determination of the effectiveness offirs t-pers on praise would seem to be a most worthy

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research goa l-one quit e possibly to be undertaken byone or more 'of the present inte lligent , sincere . truthful ,wa rm , c o ns iderate, friendl y , happy , optomistic,affirmative , energetic , luck y , earnest, and matureinvest igato rs.

REFERENCESAnderson. N . H. Integration theory and attitude change .

Ps ychologi cal Review. 1971,78 ,171-206.Byrne. D . Attitudes and attra ction. In L. Berkowit z (Ed .),

Adl'an ces in exp erimen tal social ps ychology. Vol. 4 . Ne wYork : Ac ademic Press, 1969 .

Byrne , D ., & Clore. G . L. A re inforcement model o f evaluativeresponses . Personality . 1970, 1 . 103-128.

Horowitz, H. Prediction of adolescent popularity and re jectionfrom ach ievement and interest tests . Journal of Personality.1967,58.170-174.

Kaplan. M. F .. & Anderson. N. H . Comparison o f in fo rm a ti o nintegration theory and reinforcement theory as approaches t ointerpersonal attraction. Technical Report No. 20, Center forHuman Infonnation Processing, Department of Psychology.Universit y of California, La Jolla , California 9 20 37 .

Tannenbaum , A. J . Adolescents' attitudes t oward academicbrilliance. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. New Y orkUniversity, 1960.

Walker, H. M ., & Lev, J . Statistical infere nc e. New York : Holt ,1953.

(Received for publication June II , 1973.)

Bull. Psychon. Soc., 1973, Vol. 2 (3)