Study of Psychology and Human Behavior

The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin is a major publisher of many studies on personality and psychology, which includes a 2011 study about the negative effects of attractiveness in the work environment with the participation of 400 male and female participants, who were invited for the job selection study. Letters and resumes in written form were given to participants to ensure that all the “job applicants” were equally suitable for the position, along with photographs of the “job applicants”, which were the only significant differences among the applicants and were comprised of four different types: one attractive male, one attractive female, one less attractive male, and one less attractive female. Equally distributed biases were founded between males and females which showed that attractive “job applicants” were preferred over less attractive one by job selectors of the opposite sex; on the other hand, attractive job applicants were negatively evaluated by job selectors of the same sex. Physical attractiveness is one of the most powerful characteristics known to affect social decision makings and affect an individual’s potential, especially at school or work within an organization because good-looking people are typically regarded as more amiable, humorous and intelligent than less good-looking people; in addition, being attractive is usually associated with outcomes including: hiring and promotion decisions, salary decisions, and evaluation of career potential. There have been some studies which have shown that there can be negative biases against attractiveness; as an example, powerful negative biases can be triggered by attractiveness in some romantic situations; moreover, attractive candidates were perceived as threats by low-esteem job selectors, which in turn made them choose the most unattractive candidate. In conclusion, the authors suggest organizations have a mix of sexes conduct job interviews.

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