Blondes have been the butt of our jokes for decades for their supposed lack of
intelligence. But now those with darker hair color can take some of the heat
because scientists have finally disproved the “dumb blonde” stereotype.
A recent study from the Stanford University has been able to prove that hair
color and intelligence have absolutely no relation. Scientists have been trying
to figure out what causes blonde hair for years. It turns out blondeness comes
from a switch of one single letter, A (adenine) to G (guanine) on chromosome
number 12 of the genetic code. The interesting part is that “the switch
isn’t in the hair color gene itself; it’s in the gene that controls how the
hair color gene works.”
But, even though letters of the genetic code are being changed the team of
Stanford scientists said that this genetic change is so specific that it only
affects the color of the hair follicle and nothing else, not even the brain
cells. Crushing the theory that blondes are less intelligent than those with
other hair colors. 
	Lead researcher Professor David Kingsley and his team decided that since mice
have very similar gene compositions as humans do that they were going to use
them to conduct their research. During their experiments they found that a
mouse’s hair color came out blonde or brunette based on whether a specific
gene was switched “on” or “off”. “This is a good example of how
fine-tuned regulatory differences may be to produce different traits. The
genetic mechanism that controls blond hair doesn’t alter the biology of any
other part of the body. It’s a good example of a trait that’s skin deep —
and only skin deep,” said Kingsley in a press release.
But, this still doesn’t explain why we thought blondes were so dumb in the
first place. In a study conducted in 2004, “blonde women were shown to become
dumber when subjected to negative prejudices toward blondes.” Jens Foerster,
a social psychologist from the International University Bremen in Germany said,
“after exposure to negative social-stereotypes about them, the fair-haired
participants performed significantly more slowly in the tests." This goes for
any stereotype, when people are constantly told they are something, they start
to subconsciously become it. For example, when blondes are told they can't
perform a task well, they’ll work slower to try to make fewer mistakes. 
 
	Unfortunately, since there has been no human IQ comparison testing between
blondes and brunettes we have no concrete data that blondes are in fact any
less intellectual than women with other hair colors. If scientists really
wanted to conduct an experiment they could random select blonde and brunette
participants and separate them into a blonde group and a brunette group. Then,
make them all take some generic SAT/ACT type test and look at the average
scores from the blonde vs. the brunette’s tests and compare the data
accordingly. Obviously, taking into account potential third variables such as
socioeconomic standing, race and parents education.

I personally think the data above proves that hair color is truly only skin
deep and blondes being less intellectual is only a stereotype that we really
don’t even need a test to prove. Think about it, majority of the girls you
see don’t even have their natural hair color any ways so how would you know
if the “dumb blonde” you’re talking to isn’t really a brunette?!

What do you guys think? 





Work Cited:

http://www.bustle.com/articles/26533-are-blondes-really-dumb-science-says-no-stupid

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/06/02/science-shatters-the-blondes-are-dumb-stereotype/