Does facial structure explain differences in students evaluations of teaching? the role of perceived dominance

Abstract

Dominance is usually viewed as a positive male attribute, but this is not typically the case for women. Using a novel dataset of teacher evaluations in a school of Business and Economics of a selective university, we construct the face width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as a proxy for dominance to assess whether individuals with a higher ratio obtain better student evaluations of teaching. Our results suggest that a higher fWHR is associated with a better evaluation for male faculty, while the opposite is the case for females. These results are not due to differences in teachers’ productivity. Because teacher evaluations are relevant for pay and promotion, this might contribute to the underrepresentation of women in economics.