The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Study Links Unattractiveness to Lawlessness
When police apprehended Miami bank robber Daniel Gallagher in 2003 on two counts of armed bank robbery, they asked him why he did it.
"I'm too ugly to get a job," he explained.
Georgia State University economics professor Erdal Tekin was intrigued and wondered whether unattractiveness and criminal behavior could be connected.
As it turns out, they are.
New findings from Tekin's subsequent study reveal that ugly men and women are, in fact, more likely to embrace a life of crime than their more attractive counterparts.
"We found that unattractive individuals commit more crime in comparison to average-looking ones, and very attractive individuals commit less crime in comparison to those who are average-looking," he says.
The data used in Tekin's "Ugly Criminals" analysis was drawn from three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, conducted in 1994 and again in 1996 and 2001 to explore the causes of certain adolescent behaviors and their outcomes in young adulthood. As part of the study, interviewers delivered an in-school questionnaire to more than 15,000 students in grades seven through 12, selected from 132 schools nationwide.
In one question, students were asked if they had committed any criminal acts within the past year, such as robbery, burglary, assault, vandalism, theft or selling drugs. Seventeen percent admitted that they had committed at least one of these crimes.
Interviewers also were asked to note how physically attractive each student was on a five-point scale, ranging from very unattractive (1) to very attractive (5). About 7 percent of respondents were rated as being very unattractive or unattractive.
The study results indicate that unattractive males and females were more likely to commit at least six of the seven crimes measured, while attractive males and females were less likely to commit the acts.
The study merely points out a pattern; it doesn’t explain it. But one theory holds that unattractive people sometimes find it more beneficial to engage in criminal activities, based on supporting evidence of studies that show they are less likely to be hired by employers and earn less money in the job market than good-looking people, Tekin says.
The findings of such studies could help in efforts to reduce the economic costs of crime in the United States, Tekin says.