经济学人 | The curse of the headshot 大头照的诅咒（

A strangely pervasive custom of odd poses and forced smiles

奇怪的姿势和强颜欢笑，是一种奇怪而普遍的习俗

Do an image search for the word “business” or “manager”, and what comes back? Nothing that remotely resembles business or managers. It isn’t just that the people are attractive. It is what they are doing. Many stock photos feature well-dressed types sitting around a table. One of them is holding forth and everyone else is laughing madly, like cult members hearing that the Rapture has been brought forward a week.

用图片搜索“商业”或“经理”，你会得到什么? 与商业或经理毫无相似之处。这并不是说这些人有吸引力。这就是他们正在做的事情。许多库存照片都是穿着讲究的人围坐在桌子旁。其中一人滔滔不绝，其他人都在疯狂地笑，就像邪教成员听说被提提前了一个星期一样。

In other pictures, a speaker is pointing at a pie chart. Her colleagues look astonished at what they are seeing. Or people are shaking hands, purposefully and often. If they are ever left to their own devices, they stand in front of floor-to-ceiling windows and gaze moodily at the skyline. What could they be thinking? Is it about what was on that pie chart?

在其他图片中，一个说话者正指着一个饼状图。她的同事们对眼前的景象感到惊讶。或者人们经常有目的地握手。如果让他们自行其是，他们会站在落地窗前，忧郁地凝视着天际线。他们在想什么呢? 是因为饼状图上的内容吗?

Some amount of business life involves sitting around a table. Occasionally there is laughter. But if you wanted to represent the reality of a meeting, one person would be talking, two people would be listening and everyone else would be wearing the glazed expression of clerics who have just lost their faith. If there was an accurate stock photo of someone working at a desk, its surface would be covered in crumbs and the laptop screen would be showing its owner’s social-media account.

在一定程度上，商业生活涉及到围坐在桌子旁。偶尔会有笑声。但如果你想要表现会议的真实情况，一个人在说话，两个人在听，而其他所有人都带着刚刚失去信仰的神职人员的呆滞表情。如果有一张在办公桌前工作的人的精确照片，它的表面会被面包屑覆盖，笔记本电脑的屏幕会显示其主人的社交媒体账户。

The corporate headshot is the way that firms use photography to bend reality. But whereas stock photos tend to glamorise business, headshots achieve the reverse. They make corporate life seem less fun than it actually is.

企业大头照是企业利用照片扭曲现实的一种方式。但是，尽管库存照片往往会美化商业，但大头照却恰恰相反。他们让公司生活看起来没有实际那么有趣。

Most companies’ websites contain a gallery of their senior executives and boards, the product of hours of awkward primping and posing. Executives are caked in make-up and asked to look into the camera with a succession of forced smiles. The results are consistently appalling. Most end up looking like well-dressed hostages. Someone, usually the general counsel, looks so pained that he or she appears to have just been Tasered. One or two eschew smiles altogether: in this context they are the hostage-takers.

大多数公司的网站上都有他们高管和董事会的照片，这是他们花了好几个小时尴尬地打扮和摆姿势的结果。高管们化着浓妆，被要求对着镜头强颜欢笑。结果总是令人震惊。大多数人最后看起来都像穿着考究的“人质”。有些人，通常是法律总顾问，看起来非常痛苦，就像刚刚被电击了一样。其中一两个完全没微笑 :在这种情况下，他们是劫持人质的人。

The awkwardness is amplified if the photographer has decided to show more than a person’s head and shoulders. Pity the executives who have been forced to stand side on to the camera, tilt their heads slightly like a giant parrot, fold their arms and told to look natural. If you ever saw someone standing like this in real life, you would think “better cross to the other side”, not “I bet that person is great at creating shareholder value.”

如果摄影师决定不仅仅只展示一个人的头和肩膀，这种尴尬就会被放大。可怜的高管们，他们被迫侧身站在摄像机前，像一只巨大的鹦鹉一样微微歪着头，双臂交叉，还被告知要看起来自然点。如果你在现实生活中看到有人像这样站着，你会想“最好跨越到另一边去”，而不是“我打赌那个人很擅长为股东创造价值”。

What on earth is going on? There is some research to suggest that profile photos can have a useful effect in commercial settings. Humans are quick to form judgments about others by looking at their faces: baby-faced people are regarded as more trustworthy than those who look older, for example, whereas more mature faces convey expertise. A recent paper from Stuart Barnes of King’s College London and Samuel Kirshner of the University of New South Wales looked at the impact of facial characteristics on the prices that Airbnb hosts can charge their guests. They found that hosts with attractive and trustworthy faces could charge up to 5% more per night than their peers for similar apartments. Unsurprisingly, perceived trustworthiness mattered more for small, shared accommodation.

究竟是怎么回事呢? 一些研究表明，个人资料照片在商业环境中可以发挥有用的作用。人们会很快通过看别人的脸来对他们做出判断:例如，长着娃娃脸的人会被认为比看起来更老的人更值得信赖，而更成熟的脸则能传达专业知识。伦敦国王学院的斯图尔特·巴恩斯和新南威尔士大学的塞缪尔·科什纳最近发表了一篇论文，研究了面部特征对Airbnb房东向客人收取价格的影响。他们发现，拥有迷人且值得信赖的面孔的房东在租类似公寓时，每晚的收费可能比同行高出5%。不出所料，对于小型合租来说，可信赖度更重要。

But the decisions made by consumers on online marketplaces do not explain corporate headshots. Maybe some people try to choose between Disney+ and Netflix by going to the About Us section of their websites, but it seems unlikely. And even if executive profiles were somehow feeding into the subconscious decisions of investors and job applicants, it is not at all clear what type of photograph should follow. Managers will already be trying to convey an impossible brew of leadership qualities, from breezy confidence to naked vulnerability. Now they have to look baby-faced too? No wonder people end up gurning.

但消费者在网络“市场”上做出的决定并不能解释企业的大头照。也许有些人会去他们网站的“关于我们”部分，试图在Disney+和Netflix之间做出选择，但这似乎不太可能。而且，即使高管简介在某种程度上影响了投资者和求职者的潜意识决定，也完全不清楚应该采用哪种类型的照片。经理们已经在试图传达一种不可能的领导品质（从轻松的自信到赤裸裸的脆弱）。现在他们也得有娃娃脸了? 难怪人们最终会被“变相”。

So what does lie behind this strangely pervasive custom? A headshot is something for a new executive to show their mother, and for a weary one to show recruiters. It is useful for employees who have no idea what their ultimate boss looks like. Leadership galleries increasingly serve as a crude but quick measure of diversity. Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that it is just something that everyone else does. It is odd to have a leadership team that does not show their faces. Odd but not impossible. Alphabet lists its board members’ names and eschews photos altogether. You just have to imagine them, shaking their heads in amazement at a graph.

那么，这种奇怪的普遍习俗背后隐藏着什么呢? 大头照是新上任的高管给母亲看的东西，也是疲惫的高管给招聘人员看的东西。对于那些不知道自己的终极老板长什么样的员工来说，这是很有用的。领导层图库越来越多地成为衡量多样性的一种粗略但快速的方法。也许最合理的解释是，这只是其他人都会做的事情。有一个不露面的领导团队是很奇怪的。奇怪但并非不可能。Alphabet列出了董事会成员的名字，并完全避免使用照片。你只需要想象一下，他们对着一张图表惊讶地摇头。