Beautiful inside and out: peer characteristics and academic performance

Adamopoulou, Effrosyni and Kaya, Ezgi ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1909-2649 2024. Beautiful inside and out: peer characteristics and academic performance. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 217 , pp. 507-532. 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.11.025

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Abstract

This paper explores the effect of own and peer attractiveness on various measures of academic performance. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we focus on high school students in the United States and exploit random variation within schools across cohorts in adolescents’ physical and personality attractiveness as assessed by the interviewer. We find that for girls only own personality attractiveness boosts academic outcomes. For boys instead, both own physical and personality attractiveness positively affect performance and peer characteristics also matter. An increase in the fraction of physically attractive high school peers decreases boys' academic performance in later years. We show that this effect is driven by less physically mature boys and operates through a decrease in self-confidence.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Uncontrolled Keywords:	physical attractiveness; attractive personality; peer characteristics; academic performance; Add Health
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0167-2681
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 November 2023
Date of Acceptance:	24 November 2023
Last Modified:	04 Dec 2023 10:36
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/164360

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