Are good looking people jerks? It may seem so, but the truth is your own biases screwing up with your perception. The actual reason attractive people you run into seem so mean comes down to who you’re paying attention to in the first place. Your subconscious mind thinks good looking people are worthy of your attention, so you pay more attention to them and simply choose to ignore the unattractive jerks.

AsapSCIENCE’s video has a simple explanation for this phenomenon, which you may also have seen among people on dating sites. First, they create a graph of Niceness vs. Good Looks. The graph represents the world where people – mean and ugly, ugly and nice, good looking and mean, and good looking and nice – are equally spread across.

Of these groups, you prefer to choose the ones with a certain combination of niceness in good looks, and tend to take no notice of people who you find mean and ugly. Now you are left with people – who are ugly and nice, good looking and mean, and good looking and nice – to give attention to.

“If somebody is nice, you’re less likely to be critical of their appearance, which brings down the average of nice peoples looks,” AsapSCIENCE explains. “To the same token almost half of the people who are beautiful to you, are mean.”

“Again, if somebody is mean, you likely require that they be really attractive for you to give them any attention, which makes it seem like more attractive people are jerks.”

You disregard who you find mean and ugly, because your subconscious mind thinks they are no worthy of your attention as they have no redeemable quality. At last, mean and good looking people are only ones left for you to notice.  This makes you think good looking people are jerks.

Moreover, people who are both good looking and nice are the best catches. As AsapSCIENCE puts it, they get swept off the “market” quickly and quite easily, which further increases your perception and bias. The same thing happens with food.