Are Criminals More Ugly?

A quick Freakonomics post points us to a study, which found that lenders might judge how creditworthy an individual is based on how trustworthy his or her appearance is. Though they did not specify which specific physical characteristics accompany being trustworthy, one can guess that it probably involves some sort of societal vision of attractiveness.

This reminds me of an anecdote in a book I am currently reading, called Why We Make Mistakes. The anecdote involved studies finding that, in general, criminals are uglier than the norm. Here is a passage:

Two professors [...] analyzed data from a federally sponsored survey of fifteen thousand high schoolers who were interviewed in 1994 and again in 1996 and 2002. One question asked interviewers to rate the physical appearance of the student on a five-point scale, ranging from "very attractive" to "very unattractive." The professors found that the long-term consequences of being young and ugly were small but consistent. "Unattractive individuals commit more crime in comparison to average-looking ones," they concluded, "and very attractive individuals commit less crime in comparison to those who are average-looking."

Perhaps then there is something to judging a book by its cover, as in the case with lenders. Maybe uglier people will commit more credit fraud. By the way, I have not committed any major felonies and consider myself to be very attractive.