Simultaneous Equation and Instrumental Variable Models for Sexiness and Power/Status

We would like ideally to determine whether power is indeed sexy, or whether sexiness is powerful. We here describe the most rigorous (though hardly infallible) methods for constructing models to answer such a question that we could estimate. The approach used depends on whether we are treating women’s status and sexiness as in question, or men’s, since we found individual status to be related to sexiness for women, while dyadic power was related to sexiness for men. This implies the possibility of an individual-level analysis for women, but not for men. We discuss first our models for women, and then those for men.