by Berkson’s paradox or why attractive people you date tend to be jerks Have you ever noticed that, among the people you date, the attractive ones tend to be jerks? Instead of constructing elaborate psychosocial theories, consider a simpler explanation. Your choice of people to date depends on two factors, attractiveness and personality. You’ll take a chance on dating a mean attractive person or a nice unattractive person, and certainly a nice attractive person, but not a mean unattractive person … This creates a spurious negative correlation between attractiveness and personality. The sad truth is that unattractive people are just as mean as attractive people — but you’ll never realize it, because you’ll never date somebody who is both mean and
Topics:
Lars Pålsson Syll considers the following as important: Statistics & Econometrics
This could be interesting, too:
Lars Pålsson Syll writes What statistics teachers get wrong!
Lars Pålsson Syll writes Statistical uncertainty
Lars Pålsson Syll writes The dangers of using pernicious fictions in statistics
Lars Pålsson Syll writes Interpreting confidence intervals
Berkson’s paradox or why attractive people you date tend to be jerks
Have you ever noticed that, among the people you date, the attractive ones tend to be jerks? Instead of constructing elaborate psychosocial theories, consider a simpler explanation. Your choice of people to date depends on two factors, attractiveness and personality. You’ll take a chance on dating a mean attractive person or a nice unattractive person, and certainly a nice attractive person, but not a mean unattractive person … This creates a spurious negative correlation between attractiveness and personality. The sad truth is that unattractive people are just as mean as attractive people — but you’ll never realize it, because you’ll never date somebody who is both mean and unattractive.