May 16, 2011 | 3:26 PM | By

On Asking ‘Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive?’

FILED UNDER: Media, The People, Psychology Today, Race

Talk about a problematic question: in a blog post on Psychology Today’s website, Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, wonders why black women are less physically attractive.

If you try to look at the post, you’re out of luck. It was published on Sunday, but in an email to DCentric, a Psychology Today editor confirms that the post was permanently removed from the website for editorial reasons. The publication had no official comment on the post, but the move came on Monday afternoon after Kanazawa’s writing had already caused a firestorm on Twitter.

Screenshot: Psychology Today

Satoshi Kanazawa's blog post on black women and beauty was taken down permanently.

Kanazawa developed his question using data from the Add Health study, in which a representative sample set of adolescent Americans have been interviewed three times in the past seven years. At the end of each interview, the interviewer rated the physical attractiveness of the participant on a five-point scale. This total was then averaged out, and based on that, black women were found to be less attractive than their white, Asian and Native American counterparts. Kanazawa calls this an “objective” rating.

Some studies show there are some objective ideas as to what constitutes attractive people, such as facial symmetry, but to rely solely on the individual preferences of the study’s interviewers to conclude black women are less attractive doesn’t seem very objective at all. Missing from the discussion: societal standards of beauty. They may be shifting somewhat, but there’s still a very strong white standard of beauty undercurrent that persists today, both at home and abroad. The study didn’t seem to be controlled to reflect that.

Instead, Kanazawa argues that black women are less attractive because of high levels of testosterone (this is after he writes that black women are heavier and less intelligent):

Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other races, and testosterone, being an androgen (male hormone), affects the physical attractiveness of men and women differently.  Men with higher levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore more physically attractive.  In contrast, women with higher levels of testosterone also have more masculine features and are therefore less physically attractive.  The race differences in the level of testosterone can therefore potentially explain why black women are less physically attractive than women of other races, while (net of intelligence) black men are more physically attractive than men of other races.

Kanazawa is known for taking such controversial stances: in 2006, the London School of Economics found itself defending Kanazawa’s academic freedom after he published a paper arguing that Africans countries were poor because their inhabitants were less intelligent.

  • http://beachbumchronicles.blogspot.com/ Frenchie

    one could be filled with rage and indignation about this Darwinist psuedo-science until you look at the source and wonder, ‘why is  Kanazawa so unattractive and irrelevant’….

  • http://kiki072895.tripod.com/blog BrooklynShoeBabe

    *Grimace* Wow. There’s nothing worse than an a-hole with credentials.

  • Anonymous

    I noticed something. Both comments on this post so far and most of the twitter reactions are ad-hominem attacks on the author of the piece. But science does not work that way. Now, having read the article, the author was obviously trying to get a rise out of people.  Which he did. He calls his column “The Scientific Fundamentalist,” what did you expect? Knowing these types of people, attacking them rather than the science cedes the field. Don’t attack the author. Attack the science if you think it’s wrong.In their mind, you implicitly conceded their point. In fact, you kinda did by talking about the “white standard of beauty.” Definitionally, if the world thinks whites are more attractive, then whites are more attractive to the world. So, do you want to prove your ideological purity, by calling someone who says something unpopular names and associating him with other unpopular things? Or do you want to try to prove him wrong? Most everyone picked the first. I’d rather win.Fundamentally, science believes that the world is knowable. To know the world, we must be able to measure it. No one claims the measures are perfect, but to get closer to truth, you have to run with the best measure you have. Attractiveness, you may have noticed, isn’t the same word as beauty. If attractiveness means anything, it has to be measured by the average of individual perceptions. How else could you possibly measure it?Now, the data Kanazawa uses seems to be good, a representative sample controlled by a good University. But his “attractiveness” measure isn’t what he thinks it is. Don’t get me wrong, it is an objective measure, but it measures the of attractiveness of the subjects to the interviewers. The interviewers are not a representative sample of anything, they’re UNC scientists. It’s generally accepted that most people prefer people who look like them. I know lots of people at UNC, they’re good people, but they aren’t statistically similar to America as a whole. How many of interviewers were black?So, Kanazawa made a fundamental mistake and misinterpreted his data. Here’s where the fun begins. Read the article again. But this time, each time  you see the word “attractive” or “attractiveness”, insert “to UNC researchers” after it. Seriously, go read it again, here’s a Google cache version:
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=933&source=hp&q=cache:http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201105/why-are-black-women-rated-less-physically-attractive-other&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1The article isn’t really convincing, is it? In fact, your first reaction would probably be to ask, “Why don’t UNC researchers find black women as attractive?” I don’t have the data, but it seems to be correct, he did control for random error. But he didn’t control for observational bias, aka non-random error. Oops.So, Kanazawa made a rookie mistake. A mistake that a high school student would be failed for. If PT has editorial standards, that’s a good reason to remove the article. Honestly, it’s pretty funny that such bad science got the blogosphere and twiterverse all in a tizzy. Cut the snark. Win the argument. It isn’t hard.

  • Anonymous

    Deleted duplicate

  • Anonymous

    Interesting, (and good!) article that got a very different reaction from NPR-affiliated blogs:

    http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2011/05/blake-yale-men-die-young/

    Honestly, both articles draw broad inferences from imperfect data, but this one does it better. I’m honestly not sure why, other than the fact that I can’t immediately point and laugh at flawed statistics. Ideas?

  • Anonymous

    Ah yes, he’s unattractive, therefore his arguments must be wrong. That’s why I never bought Relativity, Newton is much hotter than Einstein.

  • Gaylforce1

    Evolutionary psychology as a science in and of itself is still up for
    much debate.  So calling it pure science is problematic in itself. 
    If you can find a test that measures in a linear scale with no possibility of subjective bias then
    I will debate that science, because assigning a number to a subjective
    statement doesn’t actually make that into an objective statement – which is
    what Mr.  Kanazawa  did when The National
    Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health as the basis of his
    study with its subjective component in where the people doing the survey make
    judgments about the subjects’ appearance. 

     

    Replace African/black with white or Asian and I would
    see how those women would react. From the FLOTUS to the Rutgers basketball team
    to Albert Haynesworth, it seems as though having one’s humanity degraded for America’s
    entertainment is the cost of doing business in America as a black woman.  I don’t see other women being discussed like
    this in public.  I wonder if anyone can
    possibly understand the pain. I don’t feel as though I need to defend my
    humanity to anyone.  I’d rather along
    with my fellow dual degree having, six figure making sistas along  with other like minds and handle it the old
    fashioned way and boycott Psychology Today’s advertisers.  Check out the “What About Our Daughters”
    website for details on the boycott.

     

    Money talks – scientist walks.

  • Gaylforce1

    Evolutionary psychology as a science in and of itself is still up for much debate.  So calling it pure science is problematic in itself. If you can find a test that measures in a linear scale with no possibility of subjective bias then I will debate that science, because assigning a number to a subjective statement doesn’t actually make that into an objective statement – which is what Mr.  Kanazawa  did when The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health as the basis of his study with its subjective component in where the people doing the survey make judgments about the subjects’ appearance. 

    Replace African/black with white or Asian and I would
    see how those women would react. From the FLOTUS to the Rutgers basketball team
    to Albert Haynesworth, it seems as though having one’s humanity degraded for America’s
    entertainment is the cost of doing buisness in America as a black woman.  I don’t see other women being discussed like
    this in public.  I wonder if anyone can
    possibly understand the pain. I don’t feel as though I need to defend my
    humanity to anyone.  I’d rather along
    with my fellow dual degree having, six figure making sistas along  with other like minds and handle it the old
    fashioned way and boycott Psychology Today’s advertisers.  Check out the “What About Our Daughters”
    website for details on the boycott.

     

    Money talks – scientist walks.

  • Gaylforce1

    Sorry for printing this three times!  Was having trouble with the formatting.

    Evolutionary psychology as a science in and of itself is still up for
    much debate.  So calling it pure science is problematic in itself. If
    you can find a test that measures in a linear scale with no possibility
    of subjective bias then I will debate that science, because assigning a
    number to a subjective statement doesn’t actually make that into an
    objective statement – which is what Mr.  Kanazawa  did when The
    National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health as the basis of his
    study with its subjective component in where the people doing the
    survey make judgments about the subjects’ appearance.

    Replace African/black with white or Asian and I would see how those women would react. From the FLOTUS to the Rutgers basketball team to Albert Haynesworth, it seems as though having one’s humanity degraded for America’s entertainment is the cost of doing buisness in America as a black woman.  I don’t see other women being discussed like this in public.  I wonder if anyone can possibly understand the pain. I don’t feel as though I need to defend my humanity to anyone.  I’d rather alongwith my fellow dual degree having, six figure making sistas along  with other like minds and handle it the old
    fashioned way and boycott Psychology Today’s advertisers.  Check out the “What About Our Daughters”

  • James

    After looking at Satoshi’s face, I think it is obvious that he is low on testosterone.