Facial Attractiveness Correlates With Male Leadership in Sports

Katherine Hinds, Stephanie Chuang, Jake Kelly, and Alondra Rodriguez

Abstract

Does one’s attractiveness give insight into their fitness and leadership ability? We asked 90

participants to rank male college football and female college soccer players by attractiveness on a scale of

1 (most attractive) to 5 (least attractive), and compared their rankings by the athletes’ leadership status as

a quarterback or captain. Our results found that male quarterbacks were ranked as slightly more attractive

than non-quarterbacks, with averages of 3 and 3.5, and female soccer captains were found to be slightly

less attractive than non-captains, with averages of 2.5 and 2, respectively. The results suggest that males

in sports leadership positions are slightly more attractive than their teammates, and women in sports

leadership positions are slightly less attractive than teammates in non- leadership positions.

Introduction

“Quarterback face” is an American cultural observation where the quarterback of a football team

tends to be the most visually attractive on the team– Jimmy Garropolo and Russell Wilson being two

frequently brought up examples. Taking a step back from the NFL, we were curious if being viewed as

more facially attractive increased the likelihood of being a quarterback or captain across multiple sports, a

position based on leadership skills and fitness. This is connected to a previous study conducted by Erik

Postma which concluded that more attractive cyclists performed better at the Tour de France (Postma,

2014). With this previous work in mind, our group hypothesized that if a player plays a leadership role,

they will be rated as more attractive because this trait signals fitness and leadership skills. The mechanism

behind this hypothesis is that being viewed as more attractive and a leader is a sign of prosocial behavior

and endurance, both of which are traits that lead to higher amounts of offspring. We may be tuned to find

people with those traits as more attractive, or we may falsely correlate attractiveness with those positive

traits.

Methods

We designed a study in which we asked participants to rate the facial attractiveness of 20 men and

20 women from 4 college men’s football and women’s soccer teams on a scale of 1 to 5. We selected

college sports teams as the players because their positions are less likely to be common knowledge in
comparison to professional athletes, and we specifically chose from college teams outside of Washington

state to reduce likelihood of recognition. One of each group of 5 athletes was either a quarterback or a

team captain. Athletes were selected randomly and ordered randomly on a Google form, and we had a

sample size of 90 participants (over 18 years old). We then took the average (or median) ratings for each

player and used a bar graph to compare the mean attractiveness between the two groups. Our hypothesis

is that people are more likely to put attractive people in leadership positions in sports. If our hypothesis is

true, we would expect to see data resembling figure 3.1, showing a more desirable attractiveness rating for

quarterbacks and captains than other positions. If the null hypothesis is true, our data would look like

figure 3.2 which shows equal attractiveness ratings between the groups, meaning quarterbacks are no

more attractive than their teammates.

Results

We found that Figure 1.0 illustrates the average facial attractiveness rating of the quarterback, the

leadership position, in comparison to an average of all other positions’ facial attractiveness score. Figure

1.1 shows a slight difference in average score of facial attractiveness between the quarterback and all

other positions, with the quarterback scoring a 3 on average and all other positions scoring right below a

3.5, closer to 3.4. These results illustrate weak yet positive support for our hypothesis of players in a

leadership position being rated more attractive than other positions, since figure 1.1 resembles figure 3.2

(our results with a correct hypothesis). However, Figure 1.1 expands on the data presented in Figure 1.0

as it illustrates the average Facial Attractiveness score of the quarterback, the leadership position, in

comparison to the average score of each position individually that were tested in the survey. Figure 1.1

illustrates that few positions such as the running back (RB), long snapper (LS), outside line (OL), and

linebacker (LB) have an average facial attractiveness score of at 4 while the remaining positions,

including the quarterback (QB) have a score of at most 3. However, players in the position of defensive

back (DB) were rated on average slightly more attractive than quarterbacks with a score of 2.75, right

below the score of 3 in Figure 1.1. This illustrates that overall most other positions were rated on average

with the same score as the quarterback with only a few outliers; this further demonstrates that there is a
weak correlation between the facial attractiveness and leadership positions in comparison to only a few

other positions, not all of them.

Figure 2.0 also explores facial attractiveness in leadership through Women's soccer. In looking at

the average scores of captains and non-captains, captains are rated as less attractive than non- captains as

they have a higher average attractiveness score, a score of just above 2.5 in comparison to the non-captain

score of just above 2. Figure 2.1 breaks down the the positions of captains and non-captains into the

positions of forward (F), midfield (M), defense (D), and forward/midfield (F/M). Figure 2.1 illustrates the

same pattern in Figure 2.0, non-captains in various positions are rated on average as more attractive than

when the position taken up by a Captain. These patterns in Figures 2.0 and 2.1 show no correlation

between facial attractiveness and leadership position and instead illustrate the opposite, that players who

are not captains are rated as more attractive than captains. This is contradictory to our hypothesis, this

graph does not look like figure 3.2, or our correct hypothesis.

Discussion

We conclude that male quarterbacks have a higher rated attractiveness than teammates in lower

ranking positions. However, female soccer captains are less attractive than their teammates in non-

leadership positions. We can infer that attractiveness for women is insignificant in gaining leadership

positions (possibly even an impediment), but attractiveness is beneficial to men in gaining sports

leadership positions. Our results somewhat confirm Postma’s study, who determined that faster male

cyclists were more attractive, meaning attractiveness was cue into fitness (Postma, 2014). However, we

found that in women, attractiveness does not signify leadership qualities or athletic qualities. This is

evidence supporting an evolutionary basis into attractiveness for men, since attractiveness apparently

signifies positive traits like leadership and fitness. Attractiveness of women does not appear to signal

these same traits.

One strength of our study was that the attractiveness scale used was intuitive and quantifiable.

Rating attractiveness is a pre-existing concept in American culture. The headshots allowed for easy

comparison between athletes since confounding variables like lighting, angle, and clothes were relatively
controlled. Random selection ensured we did not pick athletes that clearly supported our hypothesis,

invalidating any results. Finally, our results were drawn from 90 responses, which is adequate in finding a

consensus on player attractiveness. While our sample size was large, the number of players tested was

likely not adequate. Since there is a binary in leadership positions, and only four leadership positions per

gender were rated, variation in attractiveness of these players likely had a strong impact on the results.

Ideally, many more quarterbacks and captains would have been rated, but this would have limited our

sample size (many participants wouldn’t have wanted to take a long survey). We also couldn’t ensure

independent results, participants could have conferred with each other while taking the survey. Finally, we

did not have a background in statistical analysis, so we couldn’t determine if there was a statistically

significant difference between leadership positions when interpreting our results.

Our study does not determine the exact evolutionary link between attractiveness and leadership

positions. Does facial attractiveness signal greater fitness and leadership? Or does attractiveness “trick” us

into believing it correlates with greater fitness and leadership? Our study also leaves the following

unresolved question: does the gender of the attractiveness rater impact who is rated more attractively, and

if so, which gender’s preferences align most closely with leadership roles? We would test this question

using the same procedure as our first study, but include a question asking the gender of the rater. Then,

results across each gender of participant and rater could be compared to determine if there is a difference

in preferences, and whose preferences align with leadership roles, giving further insight into the

evolutionary mechanism of attractiveness and the qualities it signals.

 Figures

Figure 1.1 - Average Facial Attractiveness by Football Positions: The Average Score of the

Quarterback in Comparison to the Averages of All Other Positions. There is a slight difference in

average score of facial attractiveness between the quarterback and all other positions, almost about a 0.5

difference for scores of 3 and 3.47 for the quarterbacks and other positions respectively.
Figure 1.2 - Average Facial Attractiveness By Football Position: The Average Scores of the

Quarterback in Comparison to the Averages of Each Position Individually. Few positions, such as the

running back (RB), long snapper (LS), outside line (OL), and linebacker (LB) have an average facial

attractiveness score of at least 4 while the remaining positions, including the quarterback (QB) have a

score of at most 3.
Figure 2.1 - Average Facial Attractiveness By Leadership Role for Women’s Soccer: The Average

Scores of Captains and Non-Captains from all positions presented in the survey. On average,

captains were rated as less attractive than non-captains as illustrated by the captains’ higher facial

attractiveness score.
Figure 2.2 - Average Facial Attractiveness By Soccer Position for Women’s Soccer: The Average

Scores of Non-Captains and Captains for each individual position. Soccer captains vary in position

yet have higher average attractiveness scores compared to non-captains in the same positions. This points

to captains being rated less attractive than non-captains in the same position.
Figure 3.1 - Average facial attractiveness rating vs. category groups of quarterbacks/captains vs.

non quarterbacks hypothesis graph. If our hypothesis is true and one being the rating of most attractive,

we would see the quarterback average attractiveness rating as lower than other positions.

Figure 3.2 - Average facial attractiveness rating vs. category groups of quarterbacks/captains vs.

non quarterbacks null hypothesis graph. If the null hypothesis is true, then there is no statistically
significant pattern between these two variables. Quarterbacks would be rated as no more attractive than

their teammates.
 Literature Cited

Postma, E. (2014). A relationship between attractiveness and performance in professional cyclists.

Biology Letters, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2013.0966