Before I defend plainness as a career strategy, let me concede that we should all strive to bel eggy, doe-eyed, and beautiful. It certainly beats the alternative—or does it? For all their professional advanta ges, members of the eye-candy crowd may not sit as prettily as they appear. Few studies have examined the perils of beauty, or the upside of ordinary stock. But those that do offer some interesting reminders—above all, that beauty, like wealth, is both a blessing and a curse.

在我为低调平凡是一种职场战略进行辩护前，请允许我勉强承认：我们都应该穷尽心思去追求拥有一双修长美腿、一对扑闪无辜的大眼睛，以及动人的美貌。美丽当然能助你打败其他的竞争对手——难道非然？原来，论及职场优势，这些养眼人儿们却不像看上去那么风光。很少有研究专门调查美丽的风险，或者说，平凡的好处。而这方面仅有的研究带来了一些有趣的发现——归根到底，美丽，犹如财富一样，既是一种福分，也是一种诅咒。

Consider a new paper in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology that found that when attractive people—as determined by what an independent panel thought of their pictures—are evaluated by members of their own sex, the beauty premium disappears. The paper's authors speculate that biology may be the culprit. Male guppies gravitate toward the least sexually successful fish in their school (the better to emphasize their own fine scales), so perhaps humans use similar logic in performance situations, viewing attractive members of the same sex as rivals who need to be avoided.

我想到《实验社会心理学杂志》上新刊登的一篇论文，该文发现：当一个独立专门小组通过照片对个人魅力进行评估时，那些被认为极具魅力的人在同性评估者的眼中不再具有美貌优势。论文的作者们推断，生物本能可能是其根本原因所在。雄性孔雀鱼往往会靠向鱼群里最不吸引雌性的那些同类（以突显自己身上漂亮的鱼鳞）。所以，这个逻辑可能也同样适用于人类的行为，人们会把具有魅力的同性成员视为必须避开的竞争对手。

Even if beauty helps someone land a job—and here is where the burden appears greater for women—too much aesthetic attention can be disastrous. In a study published last winter in the European Journal of Social Psychology, sexy ladies between the ages of 18 and 35 were filmed while scissoring through a corridor, then asked to watch the tape of themselves being literally objectified for their looks. A cognitive test followed, revealing that the women being filmed by men were more likely to make intellectual errors than their peers being watched by women. Being conscious of this type of sexual attention, the study's author suggests, may crowd out the capacity to focus on other things.

即使美貌有时能帮人找到工作——女性们在这方面能体会到更大压力——然而对美貌的过分关注也可能会带来毁灭性的后果。《欧洲社会心理学杂志》去年冬天刊登了一项研究：将年龄介乎18到35岁的性感女子们经过走廊时的优雅姿态拍摄下来，然后给她们看这些录影带，看着自己如同花瓶般被物化对待。随后再进行一个认知测试，结果表明：由男性执镜拍摄的女性，相比起那些由同性执镜拍摄的女性，更容易犯些智力错误。研究作者表示，当人们意识到异性的关注时，他们对其他事情的注意力就会受到影响。

Really beautiful women also face a gantlet of social slings and arrows. They are )usted after, envied, resented. They struggle to connect with peers, and sense that they are being secretly ridiculed. Around the office, at least, they seem to be right. Other women give their attractive female colleagues points for popularity. But they also rate them less competent, less talented, less loyal, and (weirdly) less motherly than women from homelier stock. This leads to another depressing conclusion for the beautiful: people doubt them, assuming that their success is a function of schmoozing—or worse. (It certainly doesn't help that pretty people in general are more likely to be genuine narcissists, according to a study published last year in the Journal of Research in Personality.)

艳压群芳的女人还要面对社会上其他人的唇枪舌剑夹击。她们既招人思慕、嫉妒，也惹人怨恨。她们与同辈交往总是感到膈膜重重，总感觉到被同性们在暗地里奚落。至少在职场上，她们的这种感觉是正确的。对那些颇具魅力的女性，其他女性同事会承认她们是很受欢迎，但同时也评价这些人既无能力，也无才华，忠诚度不够，而且（诡异的是）比起那些朴实女性，她们更缺乏母性魅力。这又带出令美貌人群相当失落的一个结论：人们怀疑她们，总觉得她们的成功是靠拉关系——甚至其他更糟糕的手段。（《个性研究杂志》去年刊登的一项研究结果指出：拥有美貌的人通常天生更加容易自恋。这样一来，我们就更难改观了。