身体发肤受之父母 我们为什么会以貌取人

With some regularity we hear about the latest beauty-pageant contestant who has responded to a softball of a question with an epic fail of a mistake, a bizarre opinion or an incoherent ramble. There's the Panamanian contestant who believed that Confucius invented the philosophy of 'Confusion, ' the Miss Hawaii who described the U.S. only in terms of the 'rocky shores' and 'sandy beaches' of Hawaii, and the Miss South Carolina Teen USA who explained that Americans don't know enough geography because too many people can't afford maps.
每隔一段时间，我们就会听到最近有某某选美大赛选手在回答简单问题时错得离谱、观点离奇或前言不搭后语地闲扯。有位巴拿马的选美选手认为“Confucius”（孔子）开创了“Confusion”（困惑）哲学，夏威夷小姐只用描述夏威夷的“‘多岩石的海岸”和“多沙的沙滩”之类的词汇来形容美国，而南卡罗来纳妙龄小姐则解释说美国人对地理了解不够是因为很多人买不起地图。

Ridiculous. But what's even more ridiculous is that our brains bias us toward believing such people -- just because they're good-looking.
真是可笑。但更荒唐的是，我们的大脑往往会偏向于相信这些人——只是因为她们长相好看。

The German poet Friedrich Schiller wrote, 'Physical beauty is the sign of an interior beauty, a spiritual and moral beauty.' His belief seems odd if you've ever seen a portrait of Schiller: His prominent schnozzola would have knocked him out of the 1788 edition of People Magazine's 'Sexiest Man Alive.'
德国诗人弗里德里希·席勒(Friedrich Schiller)曾写道：“外表美是内在美、精神美和道德美的标志。”他的这个观点显得有些奇怪——如果你看过他的肖像的话：如果1788年有《人物杂志》(People Magazine)“在世最性感男人”榜单，他那显眼的大鼻子应该会让他落选。

In the years since, research has shown that from an early age -- in both sexes and across numerous cultures -- attractive people are judged to be smarter, kinder, more honest and trustworthy. Obviously, our bias toward thinking that 'what is beautiful is good' makes for some bad mating decisions.
在那之后的这些年中，研究表明从较小年纪开始——在男性与女性及众多不同的文化中——长相迷人者往往被认为更聪明、更和善、更诚实及值得信任。显然，我们认为“美即是好”的偏向导致我们做出了一些糟糕的婚配决定。

In politics, we are also more likely to believe and vote for people who are attractive. Ditto for hiring them. And when it comes to ostensibly blind justice, numerous studies from the 1970s through '90s found that more-attractive individuals are less likely to be convicted of crimes and, if convicted, receive shorter-than-average sentences for the crime.
在政治方面，我们也倾向于相信并投票给长相迷人者，在工作招聘中同样如此。至于那些显然有失理智的法官，上世纪70年代至90年代期间的众多研究发现，长相较美的人被判有罪的可能性更小，而且即使被判有罪，所判的刑期也短于平均水平。