Surely you're feigning ignorance. People find muscle sexually attractive and associate it with power in social situations. I'm not very muscular myself, but it would be pure sour grapes not to see the benefits.
I can believe that it's true on average and that it can be useful for lots of people. I wonder if nowadays that's still something biological, or rather cultural indicator like pale skin in middle ages, or tanning more recently, that a person has much free time on his hands so is socially above average.
> associate it with power in social situations
I never seen anyone doing that. I never seen person with above average muscles in position of power. Is there some research about this?
Yeah, I heard he was an actor. I watched some of the movies he was in, but I didn't see any acting. :rimshot:
Anyway, getting back to your original point, correlation between height and income is well established (e.g. http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/standing.aspx) It doesn't seem unreasonable to suppose that other aspects of an imposing presence, like muscularity, would also effect income. (Up to a point. I think there is social pressure against excesses of muscularity.)
Height correlates with income; an appearance of health and vitality is likely important; but I highly doubt muscularity beyond what you'd get from a normal healthy lifestyle and good genes will have a positive influence on how others judge you in the world at large (at the gym or similar context is different, of course).
I don't know what research has been done, but my own snap judgements of unusually muscular people tend to be negative; couple the muscles with an exaggerated strut and they go strongly negative.
I joke that I wear my coke-bottle glasses to avoid been mistaken for a professional rugby league player. It's half true. The stereotype of a meathead is neatly offset by the stereotype of an arch-nerd.
