Job Interview - Does Being Attractive Always Help? (Part 2)

Let's turn to our main study, the study that gave this episode its name. Does being attractive always help? Positive and negative effects of attractiveness on social decision making. Published by Akte, Spörle and Mainer, 2011, in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Akte and colleagues had no doubt that if a man judges a woman or if a woman judges a man, they decide for the better looking one. But what if a man has to rate another man? And what if a woman has to rate another woman? Will they still go for the more attractive one? Or will they decide for the less attractive one because it's not such a threat for their self-esteem? In order to examine this question, they conducted three experiments in which a total of 777 subjects participated. In the first experiment, subjects had to judge the suitability of an applicant for a job as an editor of a famous German magazine. To do so, they were handed the application documents plus a portrait of the applicant. There were four groups and all that differed was the portrait. The application documents were always the same. All that differed was the portrait in respect to male or female, so same sex or other sex, and in respect to attractiveness, very attractive or less attractive. The portraits had been selected from a college yearbook in another pre-experiment in which raters had to decide, well, she's really looking good, or for example, well, he's not the most attractive guy. Based on these pre-selected portraits, the participants in the study had to decide, well, he is not that suitable, well, she is really suitable for the job. And they were also asked to which extent they were interested in social interactions with this person. Again, the what is beautiful is good stereotype was confirmed, but only for the opposite sex. So, very attractive other sex candidates were clearly preferred, whereas attractive same sex candidates were disadvantaged. So, there was a significant negative bias. Similar results in the second study, even though there were some differences in the research design. In this experiment, participants weren't shown portraits, but a five minutes lasting video, and they didn't have to decide, is he or she suitable for a job. No, they had to decide if the applicant should be allowed to their university. Again, the study authors had done everything to make the conditions comparable. The whole interview was scripted, and the actors were trained to behave similarly. The only differences, again, should be the sex of the candidates, male or female, and the attractiveness of the candidate. And again, very attractive other sex candidates were preferred, but same sex candidates were disadvantaged. So, the results of the first experiment could be replicated. In the third experiment, the study authors tried to extend their findings by also assessing the self-esteem of the subjects, because they had the hypothesis that the more self-esteem you have, the less urge do you feel to devaluate very attractive same sex candidates. Again, a job application setting was chosen. Subjects received information regarding occupational success, plus, of course, a portrait of the candidate. And based on this information, the subjects were asked to indicate on four items the extent to which the career success were a function of his or her abilities, intelligence, talent, or skills. Again, men rated very attractive women, and women rated very attractive men much better. In this experiment, the negative bias against beautiful same sex candidates did not reach significance, but in accordance with the hypothesis, subjects with low self-esteem rated very attractive same sex candidates significantly worse. So, if you're a top model, beware of same sex chiefs of staff that have low self-esteem.