I know that attractiveness can be studied fairly objectively. Has anything like “charisma” been studied objectively? Do we know, for example, how much one can make up for a lack of attractiveness with “charisma”? Do we know what makes someone charismatic? Whether it can be acquired? Whether people who are charismatic are charismatic all the time or only in certain circumstances? Etc…
How can attarctiveness be studied objectively? Different people are attractive to different people, making it pretty subjective.
Statistically.
To elaborate on Frylock’s answer, if you took a group of headshots and got a statistically significant number of people to sort them into “Very Good-looking”, “Okay looking” “Meh,” and “Ugly” and then you were able to get a different group of people to meet the people in the photographs and rate their “charisma,” I’d bet that there would be a fairly straight correlation. The better-looking you are, the more likely it is that people find you “charismatic.”
BTW, it just so happens that I am very charismatic AND very goodlooking, to say nothing of exceedingly modest.
Take a peak at the pick up artist thread.
Most would suggest that charisma can make up for ugliness, in men. But much less so in women.
Charisma is probably a combination of social skills and confidence (though definitions may vary). Both of these can be learned. Pick up artists can, and indeed do, turn it on and off as required. Many people have this ability. Though the most charismatic people are usually charasmatic all the time.
This thread is long, but I’d start at post 253 and go from there:
Obviously it’s from a very particular perspective, but I believe most of your answers are to be found in there.
I don’t know about that… Would you describe Margret Thatcher as attractive? How about Nancy Pelosi? Or Oprah? Yet all of them have been very successful in jobs that require a great deal of charisma. Granted, none of them is as ugly as, say, Winston Churchill, who was even more undeniably charismatic, but it still illustrates that it can be done.
Depends on the definition of “attractive”. If we’re talking about sexual attraction, then a man’s charisma can easily make up for bad looks. An ugly, but charismatic, woman is still considered sexually unattractive.
People can have ‘magnetic personalities’ in ways that are non-sexual. In this case, of course, women can become just as magnetic as men.