Beyond performance? The importance of subjective and objective physical appearance in award nominations and receptions in football

Ho Fai Chan, Fabian Ulrich, Hannah Altman, Sascha L. Schmidt, Dominik Schreyer and Benno Torgler

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, vol. 204, issue C, 271-289

Abstract: Despite an extensive body of research indicating multifaceted advantages for employees deemed physically attractive, factors that limit or even negate the attractiveness premium have not been sufficiently investigated. In this paper, we are interested in whether a rich set of physical appearance factors matter when performance information is transparently available, rather than – as is mostly the case in the labor force – imperfect or costly to obtain. To this end, we explore the labor market of professional football players in one of the world's most prestigious football leagues, namely the German Bundesliga. We investigate whether a rich set of physical appearance factors (including subjective attractiveness, facial symmetry, facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), and body gestalt) affect players’ chances of being nominated or receiving the prestigious Player of the Month award. This study offers a unique opportunity to explore selection heuristics among team captains who are responsible for the nomination of the players, and the public who votes on the three top selections by captains. Our results indicate that individual performance tends to be a stronger driver of award success than physical appearance. Interestingly, performance can moderate some physical appearance factors (e.g., beauty matters more for lower performing players) and some positive assortative effects between captains and players along physical appearance are observed (captains with higher fWHR scores are more likely to nominate players who also have higher fWHR scores). In general, heuristics for captains are easier to identify empirically than for the public. We also find some differences; for example, only the public demonstrates a bias towards domestic players.

Keywords: Attractiveness; Awards; Beauty; Facial width-to-height ratio; Football/soccer; Performance; Physical appearance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J30 J44 Z20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122003730
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:204:y:2022:i:c:p:271-289

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.10.022

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().