“It is constantly expected that people beautiful be more smart and are considered better leaders, which influences the trajectories and professional oportunities”
It is believed that the people that look better are more healthy or have had more positive social interactions in the past, which could influence their trustworthiness
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Numerous studies have shown that the attractive people benefit from a bonus beauty in it working market and they do it in almost any type of job
What makes a person beautiful has fascinated artists and scientists during centuries. Beauty is not, as is often assumed, “in the eyes of the beholder,” but rather follows certain predictable rules.
It is not surprising that the market beauty has seen a steady rise, reaching $430 billion in revenue in 2023, according to a recent McKinsey report.
But as far as the working market Today, the economic advantages of beauty They are undeniable. Numerous studies have shown that attractive people benefit from a bonus beauty and who earn, on average, higher salaries.
Certain well-paid professions are based on beauty (like show business), but what is more surprising is that, for almost any type of job, the beauty can generate a positive halo effect. Beautiful people are constantly expected to be more smart and are considered better leaders, which influences career paths and opportunities.
It is believed that the people Perceived as beautiful are also more likely to benefit from people’s trust, making it easier for them to be promoted or shut down. trade agreements. The idea is that people who look better are believed to be healthier or have had more positive social interactions in the past, which could influence their trustworthiness.
“Being attractive makes you more trustworthy”
But does this theory hold up? In our recent article, Adam Zylbersztejn, Zakaria Babutsidze, Nobuyuki Hanaki and I set out to find out. Studies Previous studies presented different portraits of individuals to observers and asked them about their beliefs about these people. However, often these photographs are taken from portrait databases or even computer generated, allowing researchers study perceptions, but not whether these beliefs are accurate. To study this question, we needed to develop an experimental paradigm in which we could observe the trustworthiness of different people, take pictures of them, and then present them to other people for rating.
The results of the study confirm that those people What our testers consider “more beautiful” are also much more trustworthy. This implies that in our economic exchange In the abstract, beautiful people are more likely to benefit from the trust of others. However, when we investigate actual behavior, we see that beautiful people are no more or less trustworthy than anyone else. In other words, trustworthiness is driven by old individual values and personality, which are not correlated with someone’s appearance.
Until now, a premium of beauty for both men and women. However, we might suspect that women, who are generally believed to have a higher degree of social intelligencethey could better determine the trustworthiness of their partners.
Our results show no evidence of this. The women are, on average, rated as more beautiful and they also rate others as more beautiful on average. However, women do not act more honorably in the game than men. Finally, men and women They agree in their expectations about who will act reliably or not, and therefore women are no better than men at predicting behavior.
For all of the above, it seems that the beauty Is right. It is really worth investing in beauty because it generates real benefits. However, recruiters or managers must be careful not to be fooled. One way to do this is to make CVs anonymous and ban photographs on applications. But in many interactions we see people we have to decide to trust.
Therefore, being aware of one’s own biases is crucial. Our results emphasize that this bias is very difficult to overcome, since even people who by their own experience should be aware of the superficial value of beauty They are victims of him.
* Professor of organizational behavior, EM Lyon Business School.