Are Attractive Women Worthy Of Their Physical Appearance? Or Does The Book Not Read Like It’s Cover
Christopher Philip
Its no secrete that people most people hold some degree of superficiality. We often assume that we can “judge a book by its cover.” Attractive people being ascribed attractive qualities, termed the “halo effect,” is well understood. People, it seems, find it difficult to avoid transferring outer qualities to inner personality.
Previous research has shown that people perceive attractive adults as more social, successful, and well-adjusted than less attractive adults – the ‘what is beautiful is good’ phenomenon.
But how much does physical attractiveness actually correlated to inner beauty? It’s never been studied, but we are routinely discouraged from making assumptions despite falling frequently into the trap of doing just that.
A study published in the journal Psychological Sciences had its sights aimed squarely at the beautiful. Researchers Lihi Segal-Caspi and Sonia Roccas of the Open University and Lilach Sagiv of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem performed various measures to see how rigid our stereotypes held up in the real world.
Segal-Caspi and colleagues hypothesized that observers would rate attractive women as more agreeable, extraverted, conscientious, open to experiences, and emotionally stable than less attractive women. However, they figured that how attractive women felt about themselves wouldn’t be associated with their appearance.
The Experiment
In total, 118 students were recruited to fill in as targets and judges. The targets completed a survey aimed at assessing their values and traits. Following this, they were videotaped entering a room, walking around a table, looking at the camera, and reading a weather forecast before leaving. The judges, on the other hand, watched the videos of the targets and evaluated their values, traits and attractiveness.
The results were not surprising. The more attractive targets were perceived by the judges as being more extroverted, open to experiences, and conscientious. However, when the targets actual self-reported traits and values where observed, they actually found opposite values.
Attractive women were more likely to endorse values focused on conformity and submission to social expectations and self-promotion.
The researchers conclude that while many people assume that the attractiveness of a women predicts other positive attributes, the opposite might in fact, be the case.
Resources
Lihi Segal-Caspi, Sonia Roccas, and Lilach Sagiv. Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover, Revisited: Perceived And Reported Traits And Values Of Attractive Women. Psychological Science, 2019; 23(10): 1112-1116.