Title: What makes you popular: beauty, personality or intelligence?

Authors: Andrea Fronzetti Colladon; Francesca Grippa; Elisa Battistoni; Peter A. Gloor; Agostino La Bella

Addresses: Department of Enterprise Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via del Politecnico, 1 - 00133 Rome, Italy ' Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, 02115 Boston, MA, USA ' Department of Enterprise Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via del Politecnico, 1 - 00133 Rome, Italy ' MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, 245 First Street, 02142 Cambridge, MA, USA ' Department of Enterprise Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via del Politecnico, 1 - 00133 Rome, Italy

Abstract: This study explores the determinants of popularity within friendship and advice networks. We involved almost 200 college students in an experiment to predict how personality traits, self-monitoring, creativity, intelligence, energy, and beauty influence the development of friendship and advice networks. Our results indicate that physical attractiveness is a key to develop both friendship and task-related interactions, whereas perceived intelligence and creativity play an important role in the advice network. Our findings seem to support the idea that there might be a kernel of truth in the stereotype that attractiveness correlates with positive social traits and successful outcomes.

Keywords: advice network; friendship network; social networks; personality; intelligence; attractiveness; creativity; peer selection; peer influence.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2018.094967

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2018 Vol.35 No.2, pp.162 - 186

Received: 04 Feb 2017
Accepted: 04 Feb 2017
Published online: 28 Sep 2018 *

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