The "dumb blonde" stereotype is simply wrong, according to a new national study of young baby boomers.
The study of 10,878 Americans found that white women who said their natural hair color was blonde had an average IQ score within 3 points of women with brown, red and black hair.
While jokes about blondes may seem harmless, they can have real-world implications, Jay Zagorsky, author of the study and a research scientist at Ohio State University, said in a statement.
"Research shows that stereotypes often have an impact on hiring, promotions and other social experiences," Zagorsky said. "This study provides compelling evidence that there shouldn't be any discrimination against blondes based on their intelligence."
The study found that the average IQ of blondes was actually slightly higher than those with other hair colors, but that finding isn't statistically significant, said Zagorsky, who works in the university's Center for Human Resource Research
"I don't think you can say with certainty that blondes are smarter than others, but you can definitely say they are not any dumber," he said.
The results for blond men were similar - they also had IQs roughly equal to men with other hair colors.
The study was published last week in the journal Economics Bulletin.
Click here to view the study.
Data from the study came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, a national survey of people who were between 14 and 21 years old when they were first interviewed in 1979, the study said.
Here's how the study worked:
The same group of people have been repeatedly surveyed from 1979 until the present. In 1985 they were asked "What is your natural hair color?"
Approximately 94 percent of the survey respondents took the qualifications test in 1980. The overall score is based on word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, math knowledge and arithmetic reasoning, the study said.
Here's how the data was used:
The intelligence of each respondent was created because the U.S. military needed to norm for the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which is used to determine the intelligence of all recruits.
Zagorsky used the data from the surveys and the test. To eliminate any bias in the IQ tests caused by ethnic and racial differences, he dropped all African Americans and Hispanics from the analysis.
Here are the results:
The resulting findings showed that blond-haired white women had an average IQ of 103.2, compared to 102.7 for those with brown hair, 101.2 for those with red hair and 100.5 for those with black hair, the study said.
One fact that could at least partially explain why blondes showed slightly higher intelligence, Ohio State said. They grew up in homes with more reading material than did those with any other hair color.
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