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自行車手“選美”賽

A new study suggests a link between cyclists’ looks and their performance

一項(xiàng)新的研究成果表明自行車手的外表與其成績(jī)存在相關(guān)性

Feb 8th 2014 | From the print edition of The Economist

譯者：gg1122

IT IS unfair, but true, that beautiful people are more successful than ugly ones. Data indicate that this rule applies in both business and politics—and biological theory suggests the underlying reason is that beauty is an indicator of good genes and good health. How that reason translates into success, though, is more questionable. It could be that the pretty and handsome get a helping hand from their colleagues, bosses (and, in the case of politicians, voters) which is denied to the plain and the unseemly. Or it could be that beautiful people’s underlying qualities mean they really are better, on average, at doing things.

長(zhǎng)得好看的人比不好看的人更為成功，這雖然不公，但卻是事實(shí)。數(shù)據(jù)表明這一規(guī)則在商業(yè)上和政治上均適用----生物學(xué)理論認(rèn)為根本原因在于外表好看是基因優(yōu)良，身體健康的一項(xiàng)指標(biāo)。而這一前提是如何轉(zhuǎn)換為成功的則更值得懷疑?？赡苁敲琅畮浉缒軌驈淖约旱耐?，老板（政客與選民之間亦是如此）那里得到幫助，而長(zhǎng)相平平和舉止不當(dāng)?shù)娜藙t不行。也可能好看的人的潛在素質(zhì)意味著他們的做事能力通常確實(shí)更勝一籌。

One way to disentangle these explanations is to look at a field of endeavour which is about as close as it is possible to get to a true meritocracy: professional sport. Though favouritism here might put you in the team, it will never land you on the winner’s podium. Erik Postma, of the University of Zurich, has therefore done just that, using long-distance cycling as his example. His results, just published in Biology Letters, suggest that good looks really do reflect underlying fitness, in both the athletic and the biological senses.

驗(yàn)證這些解釋的一個(gè)途徑是看一看非常接近于一個(gè)真正的精英社會(huì)的奮斗領(lǐng)域：職業(yè)體育。雖然在這個(gè)領(lǐng)域中偏愛能讓你進(jìn)入運(yùn)動(dòng)員隊(duì)伍，但是永遠(yuǎn)不可能讓你站在冠軍的領(lǐng)獎(jiǎng)臺(tái)上。因此蘇黎世大學(xué)的埃里克·波斯特馬便做將長(zhǎng)途自行車賽作為自己的實(shí)例做了這么一次驗(yàn)證。他的研究結(jié)果剛剛發(fā)表在《生物學(xué)通訊》上，結(jié)果表明外貌確實(shí)會(huì)影響潛在體能，從運(yùn)動(dòng)角度和生物學(xué)角度均是如此。

Dr Postma recruited 816 volunteers (72% women; 28% men) as judges in a beauty competition. He also assembled a collection of 80 mugshots of participants in the 2012 Tour de France. He showed the pictures, in two groups of 40, to each volunteer, and asked her or him to rate them on a scale of one to five for attractiveness, likeability and masculinity. Volunteers were also asked to note, in each case, if they recognised a rider. If they did, their rating of that individual was discounted. (This happened in 282 of the 32,468 attractiveness ratings made.)

波斯特馬博士招募了816名志愿者（女性占72%；男性占28%）作為一次“選美比賽”的評(píng)委。他還收集了80張2012環(huán)法自行車賽參賽選手的面部照片。他將這些照片分為兩組，每組40張，然后將其展示給每一位志愿者，并請(qǐng)他們給這些照片上的選手在吸引力，親和力及男子氣概幾項(xiàng)屬性中在1到5的范圍內(nèi)打分。在每一項(xiàng)屬性評(píng)分中，如果志愿者認(rèn)出其中的一位騎手，則需要注明。如出現(xiàn)這種情況，則該志愿者對(duì)這一單項(xiàng)的評(píng)分的取信度會(huì)降低。（這一情況在32468次吸引力評(píng)分中出現(xiàn)了282次。）

Both sexes agreed on who was good-looking and who was not, though women tended to give those at the top of the list higher marks than men did—especially if the women in question were undergoing natural menstrual cycles. (Women on the pill gave assessments closer to those of men.) Overall, on the five-point scale Dr Postma used, the top 10% of cyclists in the race were reckoned 25% more attractive than the bottom 10%.

男性和女性對(duì)于好看難看的判斷是一致的，只不過女性比男性更傾向于給最好看的那些騎手打更高的分?jǐn)?shù)----特別是經(jīng)期正常的女性志愿者。（在服避孕藥的女性的評(píng)分與男性的評(píng)分更為接近。）總的來(lái)說，在波斯特馬博士所用的五分制評(píng)分中，比賽中成績(jī)前10%的自行車手的吸引力比最后10%的車手要高25%。

Attractiveness turned out to have no link with likeability—in as much as that could be assessed from a picture. (Dr Postma included this category in order to try to steer volunteers away from rating cyclists as attractive merely because they were smiling for the camera, which some did and some did not.) Likeable cyclists were not more likely to be winners. Nor were those rated as more masculine. Only attractiveness showed the correlation.

從對(duì)照片的評(píng)估結(jié)果來(lái)看，吸引力與親和力沒什么關(guān)系。（波斯特馬博士加入這一項(xiàng)屬性的目的是避免志愿者僅僅因?yàn)樽孕熊囀謱?duì)著相機(jī)的微笑而認(rèn)為車手有吸引力，因?yàn)橛械尿T手微笑了而有的沒有。）有親和力的自行車手獲勝的可能性并不比親和力低的選手高，男子氣概項(xiàng)得分更高的車手同樣如此。只有吸引力項(xiàng)顯示出相關(guān)性。

Athletic training, of course, does itself increase physical attractiveness. But given that everyone competing in the Tour de France is trained to the limit, that variable is irrelevant. Remaining differences in attractiveness are most unlikely to reflect that some have trained harder than others.

當(dāng)然，運(yùn)動(dòng)訓(xùn)練本身會(huì)提高體態(tài)吸引力，但是鑒于每個(gè)參加環(huán)法自行車賽的選手都訓(xùn)練到了極限，該變量沒什么意義。吸引力評(píng)分上的差異最不可能反映的便是某些選手訓(xùn)練的是否比其他人更加刻苦。

Dr Postma’s study does not rule out the role of favouritism in other fields of endeavour. But it does support the idea that at least in areas where physical effort is important, and for men, good looks are a reasonable predictor of outcome. Whether a related study using female cyclists would show a similar correlation between performance and attractiveness remains, according to Dr Postma, “in need of investigation”. And this year’s tour might provide him with the relevant data, for the race’s organisers have just announced that, for the first time (and for one day only, as they race to the finish line in Paris) women will be allowed to compete alongside men.

波斯特馬博士的研究并沒有排除其他奮斗領(lǐng)域中偏愛的作用。但該研究確實(shí)支持了一個(gè)觀點(diǎn)：對(duì)于男性來(lái)講，至少在側(cè)重體能的領(lǐng)域中，將外表好看與否作為成績(jī)的預(yù)測(cè)指標(biāo)是有道理的。針對(duì)女性自行車手的相關(guān)性研究能否得出成績(jī)與吸引力依然存在類似的相關(guān)性，據(jù)波斯特馬博士稱，“仍有待研究”。今年的環(huán)法自行車賽或許能夠提供給他相關(guān)數(shù)據(jù)，因?yàn)橘愂陆M織者剛剛宣布，將首次（僅限一天，女性可參加在巴黎最終階段的比賽）允許女性與男性同場(chǎng)競(jìng)技。

From the print edition: Science and technology