MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5, at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Howard Ross is here. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced last week that he won't run for president, depriving late night TV hosts of the potential for four years of fat jokes.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIBut the governor's girth has sparked an impassioned debate about why some people assume an overweight candidate lacks willpower and may not be fit for the nation's top job. Whether it's fair or not, human nature leads us to make snap judgments about people based on their appearance. And those judgments can have political and economic consequences.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIFor example, Americans historically prefer tall men for president, and unattractive people sometimes earn lower salaries than their good-looking colleagues. So how do we balance our subconscious bias about things like weight and height with a more rational assessment of someone's suitability for a job, whether it's in the White House, the corporate office or the factory floor?

MR. KOJO NNAMDIJoining us to discuss the issue of personal appearance in hiring decisions is Howard Ross, diversity consultant and author of the book "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose, and Performance." Howard is also a principal in the firm Cook Ross. Howard, always a pleasure.

MR. HOWARD ROSSGood to be back, Kojo.

NNAMDIAnd I'll invite your calls at 800-433-8850. Would you vote for an overweight person for president or another high office? Have you ever experienced discrimination based on your appearance at work or elsewhere? 800-433-8850, send us a tweet, @kojoshow, or email to kojo@wamu.org. Howard, as we saw in the debate over Chris Christie's fitness for national office, we often associate obesity with a lack of self-discipline and willpower. Is that fair, though?

ROSSWell, I think that it's really interesting. You know, there are a lot of studies now that are showing that obesity, or the people's reaction to weight, may be one of the strongest biases we have. And, really, beyond rationality -- I mean, we've known for a long time, for example, that people who are overweight tend to get lower performance reviews than people who are seen as "physically fit," that people are seen as more appealing.

ROSSCertainly, anybody who looks at marketing, you know, the marketing stuff that we see, you don't see a lot of people who are heavier. But some of it is just beyond even that. There's a -- you know, Prof. Mikki Hebl, down at Rice University, for example, who studies this issue, and she did an experiment where she had interviewers who were going to be conducting potential interviews.

ROSSAnd, you know, they were being -- they were actually the test subjects. And they were conducting potential interviews with people who were students, who she was using as an example. And they were asked to go out to the lobby to pick up the person they were going to interview. And if that person was sitting next to somebody who was overweight in the lobby, they interviewed lower than people who were sitting next to somebody who was thin.

ROSSSo we're talking about something that's beyond the rational mind here. And, I think, the question that we have to ask ourselves is, certainly, there's a link between weight and health, just like there's a link between a lot of other kinds of things and health. But are we making a determination about person's health by turning it into a stereotype and a bias?

NNAMDIEugene Robinson, The Washington Post columnist, wrote that Christie's weight is as legitimate an issue as the smoking habit that President Obama says he has finally kicked. I don't remember President Obama's smoking habit being that big an issue. It was raised, but certainly wasn't raised when he was considering running for president the way Chris Christie's weight was raised.

ROSSWell, certainly it wasn't. I mean, I think that it's a concern of people. The health of a presidential candidate is a concern of people. But, certainly, if we look at the last election, for example, we had a candidate who was running for office who was, what, 72 or 73 years old, who had had a history of skin cancer, and yet he was nominated to potentially run. We had, you know, another candidate who did smoke and acknowledged that he smoked.

ROSSAnd -- but, once again, my memory wasn't that it was that big of deal. I think that the challenge is that we prioritize these. We create sort of a hierarchy of pain, if you will, about which things trigger us the most. And, even disciple -- I think that what we know about people is that people have disciple in different areas of our life.

ROSSI mean, you could -- one could say easily that President Bush was the most disciplined -- the last President Bush was one of the most disciplined presidents we've ever had in terms of -- it seemed like -- all of his health habits. And yet a good case could be made for that fact that that same discipline leads to rigidity in a certain mindset.

ROSSAnd so the question is -- you know, yes, it's true that we can see somebody's weight, and, therefore, we have a visual acuity for it. But what are people doing that we can't see or that we don't know that could also lead to their health issue? So if we're going to evaluate people based on whether or not they're going to be healthy, then we should have health be a standard and determine that by getting them examined by a doctor.

NNAMDIIs it also likely that we have a double standard in the way we view fat men and women? And should I even be using the term fat at all to discuss people who are overweight, corpulent, obese, and a number of other terms that we use?

ROSSWell, in terms of the language, obviously, we know language shifts. And some people are more sensitive about that language than others. I happened to catch -- just by coincidence, I happened to be watching CNN when Chris Christie did his press conference. And I thought -- I have to say I thought he handled it remarkably well when he was talking about -- I think somebody asked him about the David letterman jokes.

ROSSAnd he said, you know -- he said, you know, the fact that I'm fat is not a newsflash to me, you know.

ROSSBut, I think, getting back to the more important point, Kojo, I don't think there's any question that, in fact, when Cathy and I were preparing for this, I mentioned this to her. And then the next day Ruth Marcus came out with a column saying the same thing.

NNAMDIRuth Marcus said we wouldn't be even having this discussion if Chris Christie were a woman because a corpulent woman would never even be considered a viable candidate.

ROSSI think that's absolutely true. I don't think there's any question about that that's true outside of some extraordinary circumstance. And I do think that it ties into this whole thing of image and everything else.

ROSSI mean, would Chris Christie -- you know, in a real, pure medical sense, would Chris Christie at the age of 49 -- or I think he is, or something like that -- would he be less likely or more likely to be a risk health-wise in a presidency than, say, John McCain running at 72 or 73 -- whatever he was -- or, for that matter, you know, when President Bush ran again back at the time, or did former President Bush -- or President Reagan, who was also 72 when he ran again?

NNAMDICorrect.

ROSSSo I think that there's no reality to any of this. It's all a function of what we react the most to.

NNAMDIIn the political realm, how much is our preoccupation with personal appearance a reflection of today's media? FDR was in a wheelchair and was still a long-serving president, although he refused to be photographed in that wheelchair.

ROSSRight. And, of course, we don't know what would have happened. And, of course, that was a different time as well because we didn't have television, and people were not necessarily reacting as much to the politicians by appearance. And we do have some data that shows, in fact, that appearance of politicians is very relevant to their success, you know, beyond President Clinton's characterization of Gov. Perry as a handsome rascal -- I think he called him.

ROSSBut I think that there's -- Harvard Prof. Todorov -- I believe was his name -- he did a study back in 2006 maybe, something like that -- don't hold me to that number, Kojo. It's in the book.

NNAMDIMm hmm.

ROSSAnd what he did was he took pictures of all the competing candidates, Republican and Democrat, for all the congressional, all the gubernatorial races during that year, and showed the pictures to people for one second each and then asked them to pick, based on one second exposure, who they thought looked like the most competent, the most et cetera -- the most competent, the most likeable.

ROSSAnd the people picked the winner 78 percent of the time based on just one second of viewing. Now, clearly, that's not understanding the depth of character of a person. That's based on appearance. So we react to that. We're reacting to appearance.

ROSSAnd I think, to a certain degree, we may be less likely to make judgments based on the quality of people's ideas now than we were back a century ago, when all we saw were their speeches written, when we were actually were reading their words and not looking at them -- at their appearance.

NNAMDIWe're talking about the effect that personal appearance has on decisions we make, whether it's about whom we vote for, about whom we hire for a position or about whom we promote. We're talking with Howard Ross. He is a diversity consultant and author of the book, "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose, and Performance.

NNAMDIAnd, Howard, many features of our appearance, probably including weight, are controlled at least, in part, by genetics, not necessarily by individual choice. Are we too quick to make everything a case of black and white, willpower or weakness?

ROSSWell, I think we absolutely are. You know, and so much of it is a combination of genetics, as you say, and also family upbringing. I mean, I know that, you know, this has been an issue for me my whole life. I've managed to keep myself in good shape, but I'll have to work really hard at it. And I often say that if I stop paying attention to it, you know, for five minutes, I'll gain 20 pounds because I grew up in a home where everything was rewarded with food.

ROSSI mean, my mom said she was sorry with food. She said you did a good job with food. I mean, if I ate more, my mom felt like a better mother. I'm not the only one who grew up that way, and...

NNAMDII've always made the argument that the only reason I jog is because I love to eat.

ROSSExactly right. Exactly right. And so -- you know, so some of us have that in our system. Some of us come from families where we tend to keep on weight. Some people have -- you know, are very thin but have high cholesterol levels. I mean, it's just -- it's -- so some of it is biological, and some of it is behavioral. But ultimately, you know, the question is, do we make the distinction between what is appealing for us to look at and what is actually something that's threatening to a person's ability to do the job?

ROSSAnd when you look at somebody like Chris Christie, completely aside from his politics -- I don't necessarily agree with him politically about a lot of things, so I'm going to put that aside for a minute. But, clearly, anybody would say this is a guy who has shown to put enormous energy into running for governor. He's put enormous energy into serving as governor.

ROSSPeople want him to be -- wanted him to run for president because of the fact that he demonstrates a particular kind of energy and passion for what he does. There's no indication that this means that he's less disciplined in terms of the operation of his job for whatever we think about as politics.

ROSSAnd the other aspect of this, Kojo, is that I think that we, both on the more progressive side and the more conservative side, tend to be much more accepting of people who we agree with and much more critical of people who we don't about extraneous things like this.

NNAMDIIf you're in a position to hire people, how does someone's appearance affect your first impression of him or her? And what factors do you use in their hiring process when it comes to personal appearance? 800-433-8850. Here is Ismail (sp?) in Washington, D.C. Ismail, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ISMAILYes, good afternoon. And thanks for pronouncing my name right. It's Ismail, and I'm calling from Washington, D.C. My question was partly answered already, which -- it was regarding the complicity of the media because the media seem to be telling all of us what to expect of people, based on their income, based on their position in the government or in the business.

ISMAILAnd we seem to make snap judgments about people who do not immediately fit our expectations, which, again, was based on the media. I know that you both spent some time discussing this issue, and I was wondering whether you think it warrants a little more discussion. Thank you.

NNAMDIWell, we've got another 40 minutes or so during the course of this discussion, and we'll probably hear more about that. But the extension, Howard, to which media is either on the one hand a driver of culture or a reflection of culture?

ROSSWell -- and this is, of course, a, you know, perennial topic, and we'll be talking about this forever. I mean, I think that media -- for me, it's a loop. I think that media portrays what we are interested in because we watch certain things more than others. We buy certain things more than others. And there's lots of markets, research to show that that's the case. And I think Ismail has a good -- you know, has a good point here.

ROSSI mean, I think if we look at who we see, as I said earlier, represented in the media, they, for the most part, are not all America. You know, we're seeing people who -- you know, we occasionally see actors or actresses who -- they -- a young woman whose name escapes me who was in "Precious," for example, who manages to make it now in "The Big C," or people like that who are very large people in terms of their body size.

ROSSBut for the most part, if we look at actors and actresses, if we look at media people, news people, et cetera, if we look at politicians even, they are, for the most part, people who represent a certain demographic. And that is people who have maintained a particular body size and shape. And so, therefore, that becomes the norm for us. And when somebody shows up -- I mean, there were not just the jokes that were at Chris Christie.

ROSSBut Newt Gingrich has also been dinged about this. Somebody shows up who's larger, who's -- who is heavier, then they show up as outside of that norm. And we don't see that this is, you know, we now -- one-third of our population is obese. So does this mean that we're going to eliminate one-third of our population simply because of their body size from running for public office? And the media is a big piece of this.

ROSSThank you very much for your call. On to Yasmin (sp?) in Washington, D.C. Yasmin, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

YASMINHello, Kojo, and thank you for pronouncing my name correctly as well. I'm an image consultant, so I love this topic. And I'm delighted that you've decided to focus on it. I think your guest hit the nail on the head earlier when he mentioned the fact that we do make quick judgments, but that we tend to focus on appearances.

YASMINAnd, in considering health, we think only about the things that we can see, such as someone's size, but that really, as a society, we really need to have a much broader perspective on image and appearance. And in my profession, it's described as appearance behavior and communication. So a broader perspective is what would be much more important than just looking at what immediately comes to the eye, even though, still based on our genetics, this is what we tend to do just naturally.

YASMINAnd I wondered if your guest would comment a little bit more on that.

NNAMDIHoward?

ROSSYeah, Yasmin, I think that you're right. We react to what we see. Now, the question is, do we watch our reaction? Do we keep that flashlight on ourselves? So we say, wow, I noticed that I meet this guy, and he's -- you know, and he's -- let's say Chris Christie's size. And I noticed I have a reaction. I get a little turned off by that. Okay.

ROSSThen do I stop and check myself and say, but does that really have something to do with whether or not I think he can do this job that I'm interviewing him for? And, unless I'm willing to stop and ask that question, what I call -- I refer to this in the book as constructive uncertainty, you know, stopping, to pause for a moment and ask that question, to say, is this really relevant to the job that this person is being asked to do?

ROSSUnless I'm asking myself that question, then I'm susceptible to any kind of biases I have, whether they're biases based on weight or biases based on race or gender or anything else. If I'm willing to ask that question, then I get -- then I drop into a higher level of consciousness -- or maybe pop up to a higher level of consciousness would be a better way of putting it. And at least I'm considering that along with other factors.

ROSSAnd once I do that, I disidentify with that reaction. I'm no longer being the reaction. Now I'm able to look at the reaction and determine whether or not it's valuable. And as an image consultant, I'm sure one of the things that you deal with is you have to help people be able to promote an image without necessarily thinking there's anything wrong with the way they look, but knowing also that some people are going to be reacting to that.

ROSSSo I know that's got to be a challenge for you in some cases.

YASMINExactly. We do try to help people love themselves the way they are.

ROSSMm hmm.

NNAMDIYeah, Yasmin. Thank you very much for your call.

YASMINThank you.

NNAMDIBut, Howard, how about this? Here in the District of Columbia, a law firm website says the D.C. law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, source of income, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, personal appearance, matriculation, family responsibilities, political affiliation, family status, place of residence or business.

NNAMDIPersonal appearance, somebody comes to Cook Ross for a job, and the person is just sloppy and slovenly. Doesn't that -- isn't that taken into consideration?

ROSSWell, I think that, certainly, the way somebody presents themselves may communicate something to you. And I think, once again, the question you have to ask is that, is this something that means that they can't do the job? You know, there's that great scene in the Will Smith "Pursuit of Happiness," when he -- if you saw the film, Kojo -- where he's running for his -- an interview...

NNAMDIDidn't see it.

ROSS...with -- I forget (unintelligible) I forget what the company was that he was working -- he was trying to get. And he comes in, and he -- something happens. He's (unintelligible) he was painting, and he realized. And he runs there 'cause he has this one chance. He comes in with paint all over him, and, you know, in his kind of shaggy clothes, whatever, and they -- he manages to convince them to give him the job anyway.

ROSSBut, clearly, we have certain standards in appearance in most places, and they vary from place to place. But, more and more, we're seeing that there are companies -- you know, Whole Foods is a good example -- companies that say, you know, as long as you're not completely outrageous, you know, you don't come to work topless or something...

NNAMDIBe who you are, yes.

ROSS...the more comfortable people can be being themselves. We hear companies that are doing casual Fridays, and then that led to people saying, well, wait a second. If that can work on Friday, why can't it work all the time? And more and more companies are now saying, unless you're dealing with client interface directly, you can dress however you want.

ROSSAnd we certainly have that sort of code at Cook Ross, you know. But I think it depends on what the client is. If you're working in a bank, people like to usually have a little bit more formal dress. But I think the question is, if we make those a standard that apply to everybody, that's different than doing it subjectively to an individual person.

ROSSThat's different than saying, well, I'm not going to hire you because I don't like the particular color of that tie or that sort of thing, to say that this is our dress code. It's a standard.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. When we come back, we'll take your calls at 800-433-8850. If you are in a position to hire someone, how does that person's appearance affect your first impression of him or her? 800-433-8850 or go to our website, kojoshow.org. Ask a question or make a comment there. Send us a tweet @kojoshow, or email to kojo@wamu.org. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. Howard Ross is with us. He's a diversity consultant and author of the book "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose, and Performance." He's a principal at the firm Cook Ross. And, today, we're talking about personal appearance and the decisions we make: voting decisions, hiring decisions, promoting decisions.

NNAMDIAnd here is Francesco in Falls Church, Va. Francesco, go ahead, please.

FRANCESCOI have three quick items to say. First, this is mostly an American thing, idea. This is not an idea applied throughout the rest of the world, and I have traveled quite a bit. Number two, women in hiring positions are more likely to apply the tall bias than men. And, number three, most of the reason (unintelligible) are not six feet tall.

FRANCESCOYou want to listen to your -- in corporate world around the world, they are not -- the French are not particularly tall. Well, the Italian president is tall. Putin is a short guy. The former president of Brazil is a short guy. I mean, you can go on and on (unintelligible).

NNAMDII'm glad you brought up Putin as an example, Francesco, because Howard knows a lot more about this than I do. But, obviously, standards of beauty and attractiveness differ in different cultures. And, in our culture, height might be one such standard. It might not be the same in another standard. But if you look at President Putin and you see the number of ways in which he likes to be shot, the ways -- number of ways in which he likes to portray himself, he likes to be portrayed as a very attractive man of action.

NNAMDIHis body means a great deal to him, clearly, and that, I have been reading, sends a message to the Russian voters and the Russian people that Putin is a man of action. But I'd like to hear Howard Ross on this.

ROSSWell, I mean, clearly, Francesco's right, that there's different standards in different parts of the world. That doesn't mean there's any less discrimination based on those standards. I mean, the French are very conscious about the way people dress, for example. The -- in China, height is seen as such an advantage, both in business terms and in social terms, that there was a huge rash of people getting leg lengthening surgeries where there were these horrible surgeries.

ROSSThey would break their legs and put them on these things that stretched them, so much so that they have to make them illegal. And it does play out in different parts of the world in different ways. I think that the issue is not so much that other people are any less biased towards what they like as an image. It's just a question if the biases change from culture to culture.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call, Francesco. We got this email from Katherine in Silver Spring. Katherine writes, "Weight is the last bastion of discrimination. It's okay to discriminate against those who are heavy in hiring, seating in bars and restaurants and theaters, even getting service in stores, including grocery stores. And if, God forbid, you call someone on it, you'll be called every foul, disgusting name you can imagine.

NNAMDI"I went on an interview after being laid off from a telecom company in the late '90s. The interviewer told me my resume was thin. The only thing that wasn't thin was me. Oh, and I had just gotten my CPA certificate, and I was interviewing for a senior accountant position, a job I had been doing for 10 years."

ROSSWell, I think that's true. I mean, I think -- you know, now, whether it's the last -- there's certainly, I think -- I don't think we've dealt either with socioeconomic status and prejudice against that either. I do think that it's one of what we might call the more invisible of the ones. And just looking at the columns, you know, that we were reading in preparation for this show, Kojo, the Michael Kinsley's column, for example, particularly where he said flat out, look, I know that people are going to accuse me of discrimination.

ROSSSo what? Here's how I feel. I mean, there's absolutely no other area that we've -- major identity area that we could talk about that would be seen that way. I think there's something else about this, too, Kojo, which we want to make sure to speak to, and that is that these things are generationally and culturally determined as well. Francesco talked about it outside the country in different ways, but it's also even within our country.

ROSSSo, for example, generationally, if we think of tattoos or piercings, you know, that 40 percent of people between the ages of 16 and 40 in this country have either tattoos or piercing, and yet, you know, there are still people who see that that's a reason to exclude people because of appearance.

ROSSOr, back a number of years ago, the thing -- one of the ones that struck me from a cultural standpoint, if you remember back a number of years ago when David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA, told players that they could no longer wear bling, you know, that they could not wear these big necklaces with gold.

ROSSAnd I think you and I may have even talked back then about the fact that if you take that same thing that that player -- mostly African-American, of course -- had around their neck, this big, you know, the symbol of whatever, and you drop it down 18 inches and put it on a belt buckle for a kid who's from Oklahoma, that's fine. But if you raise it up 18 inches and have it hanging from a chain, it's not fine.

ROSSSo these are cultural determinations, and, obviously, certain organizations and companies have the right to make those determinations if they do it within the law. But that doesn't mean that they're fair necessarily.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call. Some features like weight and height are readily apparent. Others are not. A thin, attractive person could be on drugs or a spouse abuser. How well do employers deal with the fact that some features are visible and others not so much?

ROSSYeah, I mean, I think, Frank Bruni's column in The New York Times really spoke to this. He was saying that, you know, he struggled with this his whole life, and it was really, I thought, a really impressive column in how honest and authentic he was in writing. And he said, during college, that he managed to keep himself thin, but it was through bulimia and through, you know, obsession. And he wasn't healthy at that time.

ROSSHe managed to keep his body thin, but he was nowhere near healthy at that time. He was basically starving himself to death and doing things that were completely unhealthy. And I think that the very thing you're talking about is true as well. You've got people who come in every day, and they look physically fit. They go home, and they get drunk every night or do drugs. Or they never exercise, or they beat they spouses.

ROSSOr they -- you know, I mean, any number of things that people might do. We just can't see them as much as we can see people's weight. And so the question is, are we going to hold people accountable for performing and their ability to perform? Or are we going to make determinations based on some stereotypical standard that we've determined? And that's ultimately what it comes down to.

NNAMDIWhere some voters see a fat candidate, other voters may see an every man who understands their plight. Getting back to Michael Kinsley's column again, when we choose candidates and employees, are we looking for someone who we can identify with or someone who fits a kind of prototype or stereotype for that position?

ROSSWell, I think more now, maybe than ever, we are looking for the every man candidate. I'm not sure that's always a good thing. I think that we've gone from people having a really good education at a really good quality school being a plus to now being seen as elitist if you went to a good school. It reminds back to the time when -- who was it? Carswell was nominated for the Supreme Court.

ROSSAnd people -- by Nixon, and people said that he was a mediocre judge. And Roman Hruska, I believe, who was the minority leader of the Senate at that time, said, well, you know, minority (sic) people deserve the right to be represented as well. I mean, it's kind of a ludicrous proposition...

NNAMDIYou mean mediocre people?

ROSSMediocre people. Excuse me. Again, mediocre people need to be represented as well, and we've sort of gotten to the stage...

NNAMDIAnd now you have presidential -- one presidential candidate boasting about how badly he did in school.

ROSSExactly right. I mean, it's -- you know, where do we come to -- where we've gotten to the point, where whether or not you want to have a beer with somebody is more important than how -- whether they have the intelligence or the capability to lead, I think, is a very dangerous place. I think that -- I think it was H. L. Mencken who said many years ago -- I'm sure I'm butchering the quote.

ROSSBut the essence of it was that, one day, American democracy will come to its full fruition when we will elect some boob from the middle of the country who reminds us of ourself, you know.

NNAMDIHere is a post we got on our website from Revena, (sp?) "How you dress, whether to wear makeup do matter in a first impression and beyond. Just like maintaining your Facebook page at a professional manner is important these days, it's all about appearance."

ROSSWell, I would say that Revena is right. You know, when I'm talking to my son who you've met, who's 17, I tell him that, you know, people will be judging you. Now, I don't necessarily say to him that they should be judging you, that it's right that they're judging you, or that it's fair that they're judging you, and they should be -- I mean, they will be judging you. So you have to make a choice. I remember I was coaching a protégé.

ROSSI met a young man who I was mentoring years ago, this African-American man who I met through a youth program I was doing in -- and he's very dark-skinned young man, had his hair in dreadlocks, and he was about to apply for jobs. And he said, what do you think? Do you think I need to get a haircut? And I said to him, look, I said, I have no problem with your hair. I think it looks great on you.

ROSSIt doesn't bother me at all, and you should know that there are some people who will probably react to it. So the choice for you is whether it's important enough for you to take that risk. That's not something I'm telling you 'cause it's wrong. It's nothing for you to feel bad about yourself for doing that. But you should know that I'm not going to tell you, touch that hot stove and expect it not to be hot.

ROSSThere are going to be people out there judging you. So you have to make the determination, whether that's something you're willing to stand for enough to risk the possibility of that judgment.

NNAMDIBack to the telephones. Here is Perry in Brunswick, Md. Perry, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

PERRYThanks, Kojo. I can relate to that long hair story with my own son when he was in high school. And I told him that his long hair long looked great. It was down below his shoulders. And I said, but, you know, people will judge for you it. And a couple of years later, he came home, and he had it for a while.

PERRYAnd then, one night, he came home, and his hair was really short. And I said, Nick, what happened to your great hair? He said, I got tired of being judged for it.

NNAMDIGood story.

PERRYAnyway, the -- thanks for having this conversation. The -- something else which is kind of related, but his age, and I think age is something which we can't hide. We put our resume out, and we say we've got 35 years in this whatever. Or we show up, and we're clearly over 60 -- or over 65, in my case. I mean, it's just -- it's there.

PERRYAnd I think it's frequent, and I think it's common. And despite the law, it just seems to be tolerated, and no one seems to address it.

NNAMDIPerry, thank you very much for your call. I'm going to move on to George in Columbia Heights in Washington because he has a similar point to make. George, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

GEORGEHi. Thank you, Kojo. Yeah, I have to echo his comments. From personal experience, I stay in shape. I exercise quite a bit, which is basically required of the activities that I do on the job, but passed over for five years, and all the young people that are coming to the organization without half the qualifications that I have in terms of the activities that are done at my job -- I'm about talking D.C. government, of course.

GEORGEYou know, they get passed over. I mean, I trained these people for many years, and they were making -- coming in and making $5,000 more than I was.

NNAMDIAnd you feel it's...

GEORGESo age is -- pardon me?

NNAMDIGo ahead. Finish your thought.

GEORGESo age is definitely a high-risk venture, but it's unavoidable. And even if you stay in shape and come in with good appearance, otherwise, it's definitely a drawback as far as promotions and hiring.

NNAMDIHoward?

ROSSWell, I think you're right. I think both George and Perry are right in what they're saying. And this has actually become more of a problem in the last few years because, you know, if we go back three or four years ago, before the economic crash happened, we had a real issue in terms of shortage of people in the workforce. And people were talking about, you know, needing to keep people in.

ROSSSo the notion of keeping people around longer in the workforce, hiring over people for jobs was something that was very relevant to people. Now, of course, the opposite is true. We got more people out of work, and so people came to make choices. And if I'm going to hire somebody, the mindset goes, why hire somebody who's older?

ROSSWhy not hire somebody who's younger, more in the upswing that I'm likely be able to pay less in the mindset -- I'm not saying that's necessarily the case -- and somebody who can -- I can develop and have stick around for longer? And I think that's true for a lot of jobs.

NNAMDIAnd there's not a whole lot we can do about that, is there?

ROSSWell, it's very hard. I think one of the challenges is people don't usually say this. I mean, you know, back years ago, my dad was a manager of a -- and a general manager for Pep Boys, and he was let go. This is now -- I have to say, just to be clear, that this is not about the current company there. But this is more than 25 years ago.

ROSSHe was let go because they had three district managers, decided they only needed two, and he was let go because he was the oldest, and he was able to actually -- you know, they ended up settling on a suit because of that. But the -- but I think that people know that they can't say that out loud, but it doesn't mean it's in -- it's not in the mindset, nor is it in the mindset where they're going to realize it's happening.

ROSSSo that gets back to the unconscious bias that we've talked about a lot. And I think this is true, you know, for -- the interesting thing about all these topics we're talking about, whether it's age or weight, weakness or disability in there, these are all things that are different from some of the other biases we've talked about than, say, race or sexual orientation or gender, in that these are things that we all face.

ROSSI have a good friend who does a lot of work in the disability area, and she says that we're all temporarily abled, you know, until we're not. We're all getting older. We're -- we all have the potential to have our bodies, you know, start to look different as we get older. And that makes it very different because as we look at these biases and we're thinking about those -- we're thinking about Chris Christie, you know, whom we guarantee that 10 years from now, we're not going to have a weight problem. And so...

NNAMDIAnd that he might be slim 10 years from now.

ROSSThat's right. And that he may have lost weight, that's right.

NNAMDIExactly right. I'd like to put this question to our listeners. Be honest with us. Do you have a subconscious bias against people with certain physical characteristics or -- it wouldn't be subconscious if you know about it, would it? But do you have a bias against people with certain physical characteristics? Call and share that with us, 800-433-8850. If you have already called, stay on the line. We'll get to your call.

NNAMDIYou can send us a tweet, @kojoshow. Go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. Or send email to kojo@wamu.org. Why do you think Americans have elected so many tall male presidents? I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to our conversation with Howard Ross about personal appearance and the decisions we make about voting, about hiring and about promoting people. Howard Ross is a diversity consultant and author of the book "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose, and Performance. He's a principal with the firm Cook Ross.

NNAMDIWe got this email as a post on our website. "In college, I didn't get a job at a swanky gift shop because I was too short and not model-like. They were actually very blunt and hurtful about saying it right out to me. They only hire tall waifs with ski-jump noses to sell candles and fancy pens. I often wonder if there were other jobs I didn't get because of this since I was trying to get jobs in media business offices after college.

NNAMDI"Of course, more professional places would never come right out and say that you're not being hired because of your looks. You just have to figure that out." Howard, the Chris Christie story focused everyone's attention on weight as a measure of political suitability. But height is, in fact, a more common factor in choosing presidents and CEOs. What attributes do we associate with tall people, such as yourself?

ROSSWell, I think -- well, first of all, I think that you're absolutely right. I mean, out of the last 60 years, the 16 presidential elections, there have only been two times when the shorter candidate won. And we do look at tall people. Less than 36 percent of American men are over -- excuse me -- less than 14 percent of American men are over 6' tall, about 60 percent of corporate CEOs, and less than 4 percent are over 6'2", about 36 percent of corporate CEOs.

ROSSAnd the same is true for admirals and generals in the military. And the average -- as two guys named Cable and Judge from the University of Florida, who did a study of this, found that an inch of height is worth more than $800 a year in salary for men. Now, it's different for women because there's -- there are sort of countervailing things. In some cases, height for women, you know, connotes that same strength.

ROSSAnd, in some cases, particularly, shorter men are intimidated by taller women. So it's -- you know, it's not quite as definitive with women as it is with men. But I think we think about some of the stereotypes that we have, some of the adjectives we use to describe tall people, you know, powerful, powerfully built. Commanding presence is one that I hear a lot. You know, I'm 6'5".

ROSSAnd, you know, it's not like a corporate board of director goes out and says, go hire me a tall guy. What happens is two people come in, and they're interviewing. Let's say I'm interviewing at 6'5". Somebody else is interviewing at 5'5". They just -- it's not that they say, let's hire him because he's taller. You know, maybe, you know, he's just got a more commanding presence, you know?

ROSSAnd people may not even put that together in their own mind. They might not even say that that's true. Now, there are exceptions to this. And Francisco talked -- or Francesco, rather, talked earlier about the fact that in other places we see shorter people -- Putin and other people. But in some cases, those people, in order to get there, have had to have been quite extraordinary.

ROSSI mean, I had a -- I have one client that's the -- it's a law firm, and the managing partner of this law firm is about 4'9". It's a guy. He's 4'9", and it's very unusual. But it's also -- he's brilliant. He's transcended that. That doesn't mean -- just like when President Obama was elected, it didn't mean that race refused to exist anymore as a -- diminished as an issue for us. It just meant somebody transcended it.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones. Here is Buck in Raleigh, N.C. Hi, Buck.

BUCKHi, Kojo. How are you today?

NNAMDII'm well.

BUCKThank you. I was calling. I appreciate you taking my call. I'm an average, run-of-the-mill, white, Anglo Saxon Protestant, 6'3" tall, have a fairly deep voice. And I've been judged, and I tend to judge although I try very hard not to. And it's amazing over the years, how I feel like, just because of my height, there's a presumption about how I'm going to be successful.

BUCKOr they're kind of shocked that I'm not so successful in this, that or the other thing, whatever my career profession might be. And I'm also -- I seem to be judged -- I work a lot with minorities, and some people judge me that I may not care about, you know, their minority group or, because of my color, my height or where my historical background's from, that I'm going to be as sympathetic to a person's situation which, in my case, is certainly not the case.

BUCKAnd it's -- I find it just amazing that there is continuing to be such a bias based on appearance.

NNAMDII guess you've got the same experience in, at least some respects, that Howard has had over time.

ROSSYeah, I mean, I think you're right, Buck. I mean, I think that bias goes in all different directions. One of the points I make in the book is that, you know, is that on an individual basis, we can -- anybody can demonstrate bias against anybody else. In fact, we all do. We all do have biases against other people. And, in your case, you know, being a tall white guy, you know, with the name of Buck and coming from the particular part of the country you come from, I have no doubt that people will encounter that. And that will be challenging at times.

NNAMDIBut here's the other side of that coin. We got this from Skip. "I've seen instances of good-looking people being sidelined by superiors who were, apparently, jealous of them. Have you looked into reverse discrimination on this issue? With such a growing population of overweight Americans, are good-looking or in-shape people discriminated against?" Probably not so much.

ROSSI actually -- although -- I tell you something, Kojo -- I actually had this very thing come up. I was doing a training last week. I was -- where it was, the middle of the week, sometime, in New York City, and it was with a law firm. And one of the women in the law firm actually was sharing, was revealing her own process. She said she was hiring -- or she was interviewing potential recruits to come into the law firm out of law school.

ROSSAnd she encountered this woman who was just drop-dead gorgeous. She said she was just staggeringly perfect in her appearance. And she said -- she was sharing how her own process went through, the part of her that was diminishing this woman, sort of the "bimbo effect," if you will. I'm saying in quotes...

NNAMDISure.

ROSS...you know, that she must not be bright because -- and she was watching what she was sharing with us. She was watching her own process and trying to move that conversation out of her mind so that she could really listen to this woman, who turned out, ended up being very bright, very capable. But I think that there is that quality.

ROSSSometimes people do seek good-looking people as "Barbies and Kens," and, therefore, they must have not have made it on their talent.

NNAMDIBuck, thank you very much for your call. Here is Sheila in Eglon, W.Va. Sheila, your turn.

MS. SHEILA COLEMAN-CASTELLSHi there. First of all, I need to say that I know Howard Ross. This is Sheila Coleman-Castells. We worked together many years ago. How are you?

ROSSHi, Sheila. Nice to hear from you.

COLEMAN-CASTELLSWell, two things. Howard knows that I own a business that does similar work that he does. I have a bias in not hiring consultants who smoke cigarettes or smoke tobacco in any form. And this is not because I am against people smoking. But, as much as it is, I find that it takes away from productivity, number one.

COLEMAN-CASTELLSAnd it also tends to -- because of the smell that lingers on the body afterwards, it conveys something to my clients who notice it and then have a reaction or may have a reaction. So this is something, I think, that's much more prevalent now than when I first started my career, you know, 29 years ago when I was a school teacher in D.C. Public Schools.

COLEMAN-CASTELLSAnd we had a teacher's lounge that you couldn't even go through because of the amount of smoke. You couldn't even see to the other side. Today, we can't smoke in schools. Things have changed a great deal. I'd like to know how you all think about that. And I'll take my answer off the air.

NNAMDIWell, I have a question for you, Sheila. Would you vote for or against someone based on whether that person has a smoking habit?

COLEMAN-CASTELLSI think -- I mean, certainly, I knew that President Obama had a smoking habit. Actually, because I'm in -- I do some political work, I knew it before the general public did. But I think that I do consider it not so much as a qualification, but I have to say that, again, it does fall to me in the realm of a personal issue. I don't think that I would make the decision not to vote for someone because they smoke.

COLEMAN-CASTELLSBut my eyebrows would be raised because I do feel like it is, especially in this day and age, a habit that -- you know, my parents may not have known when they started smoking that it was bad. Today, everybody who starts smoking knows that it's bad, and they also know how it looks and smells and appears to other people. They -- it's well-known.

NNAMDIOkay.

COLEMAN-CASTELLSPeople -- I'm single. I know that I don't date men that smoke. And I know that women who smoke don't get as many dates, you know, on online dating (unintelligible)...

NNAMDIYou have studied this issue rather closely, Sheila. Here is Howard Ross. Howard.

ROSSWell, I think we get into danger when we take the causes of things, or the results of things, I should say, and assume then the whole people count for the causes. I mean, if the issue, for example, that Sheila's bringing up is productivity, then we should hold people accountable for productivity. If they -- you know, it affects their productivity to smoke...

NNAMDIWe've got to take 10 minutes off every hour.

ROSS...then does that mean that it affects the productivity to take personal phone calls or to take -- or to be on social networking sites or to work in the football pool, you know? I mean, I think that the issue is, are they being productive and how do we hold them accountable for being productive? I don't think every person that smokes, necessarily, is unproductive. Sometimes they build their schedules around it in a way that keeps them productive.

ROSSIf it's smell that's the issue, then do we also hold people accountable if they wear very, very strong perfume or cologne that's off-putting to people? And I've certainly been around people like that for whom I just couldn't even be in the room with them because their perfume or cologne was so strong, or, for that matter, if their body odor is really strong.

ROSSYou know, I think -- so as long as we're consistent in those lines and we say, you know, I don't like people who, you know, have a particular smell that's off-putting to people -- but, of course, that gets into some dangerous territory. We've got to be really careful with this because, then, how do we determine this? Do we ask people to raise their hand or ask a vote of clients, you know, who smells bad?

ROSSWell, this person had bad breath, and this person had body odor. This person's cologne was too strong, and this person smoked cigarettes. They -- I didn't like the smell of any of them. So we do fire them all? So I just think -- I'm not saying I'm not sensitive to the point that Sheila is making, which is how it represents us. But I do think it leads us down a slippery slope.

NNAMDISheila, thank you so much for your call. I'm going to go to Margaret and then to Matthew because I think they both have similar complaints. We'll start with Margaret in McLean, Va. Margaret, your turn.

MARGARETYes. I find this conversation very interesting and very worthwhile. Talk about the bimbo effect. I think I was drummed out of graduate school 'cause I was too tall and good-looking.

NNAMDIWhat is the evidence you present for that?

MARGARETComments from teachers and a lot of discrimination. I remember a bold comment that a teacher wrote all over a paper I submitted in grad school...

NNAMDISaying what?

MARGARET...and general (word?) saying that I was an incompetent scholar, blatantly.

NNAMDIAnd you feel that was almost entirely because of your appearance?

MARGARETYes.

NNAMDIOkay. Well, I'm going to put you on hold while we go to Matthew in Northern Virginia. Matthew, you are on the air. Go ahead, please.

MATTHEWHi, Kojo. My name is Matt. I'm 31. I'm 6'1". I do my pushups every morning just like you. And I've got to say, for every old person who's competent, who isn't able to find work or finds themselves passed over, there is a competent young person who's stuck in middle management and is unable to advance because they have a boss who they do most of their job for. It might just be that we have a real tough economy right now.

MATTHEWI graduated from Georgetown and couldn't find a job for four years. I had to put myself through law school, and, even then, I only got hired as a co-counsel after starting my own successful law firm. So I think that this is a paradigm that has many, many sides, and it can't be attributed to simple discrimination.

NNAMDIYou should know, Matthew, I haven't done pushups in three weeks. My back has been killing me, but that's another story. Here is Howard.

ROSSWell, I think that, first of all, that there's no question that what Matt saying is true, and there's no question to what Margaret is saying is -- can be true as well. I mean, I honestly don't know the individual circumstance, Margaret, that you faced, but we know that we're replete with blonde jokes and that depictions of women are often like that in the movies and in television and all around us. And so we know that's true.

ROSSOr Matt's concern, you know, there's no question that there are some people who are treated as less competent because they're younger and don't get opportunities because they're young as well, as folks get -- don't get treated that way 'cause they're older. But we do have research that shows that there are patterns in this beyond the individual circumstances and that the archetypical patterns are that, particularly right now in this economy, people are more likely to be discriminated against because they're older than because they're younger.

ROSSIn -- like circumstances, that doesn't mean that some people aren't discriminated against because they're younger. It just means that that's the generalized pattern. I would say that any discrimination based on age is inappropriate.

NNAMDIMatthew, thank you for your call. Margaret, thank you for your call. How do employers deal with people who don't fit a company's image? A few years ago, the clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch paid $50 million to settle a lawsuit that accused it of hiring good-looking white men for sales positions and putting minority workers in stock room positions. I guess that was both racial and appearance bias.

ROSSMm hmm. Well, I think that how companies do it is by making it clear that we have our particular standard. Here's what the standard is. And according to the law, we can't have that standard limited to race or gender, for example, or some of the other distinctions you're talking about. But we certainly can say that, in order to do this job, one has to, you know, dress in a particular way.

ROSSAnd if everybody is held to that same standard doing that job, if it's something that you can do something about, that we don't allow facial hair, we don't allow whatever. Now, of course, even facial hair is an issue for some religious reasons. For example, there have been lawsuits where Sikh men have sued and won because growing their beard is part of their religious practice.

ROSSSo I think that, more and more, what people are finding is that the things that are clearly stated and the people make the choice to come work there are easier to deal with.

NNAMDIAnd, finally, there's this from (word?). "I have a cultural bias against very muscular men. I can't help thinking that they are less intelligent than average or that their conversation topics will be very limited, so I avoid them. This is probably not a widely held view in the U.S., but I grew up abroad, and I know many people who think that way.

NNAMDI"People believe a bodybuilder has to be dumb. An intellectual, sensitive guy has to be thin or can even be fat, but not muscular."

ROSSThis is the male equivalent of the bimbo effect.

NNAMDIHoward Ross is a diversity consultant. He's author of "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose, and Performance." He's also a principal with the firm Cook Ross. Howard, thank you so much for joining us.

ROSSPleasure as always, Kojo.

NNAMDIAnd thank you, all, for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.