People readily spot gender and race bias but often overlook discrimination based on attractiveness
People readily spot gender and race bias but often overlook discrimination based on attractiveness
People readily spot gender and race bias but often overlook discrimination based on attractiveness
People readily spot gender and race bias but often overlook discrimination based on attractiveness
26 Comments
>People are much harsher when they see outcomes biased by gender or race than by physical attractiveness, largely because attractiveness bias often goes unnoticed, according to [research](https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000459) published in Journal of Personality & Social Psychology.
>Discrimination is widely recognized as unfair, but detecting it in everyday life is not always straightforward. People rarely witness explicit prejudice; instead, they often infer discrimination from patterns in outcomes, such as who gets hired, promoted, or punished. When certain groups are consistently overrepresented or underrepresented, these statistical imbalances can signal bias. Prior research shows that people readily interpret such patterns as unfair when they involve well-known forms of discrimination, such as race or gender.
>Bastian Jaeger and colleagues were motivated by a puzzling gap in both research and public discourse: despite strong evidence that physically attractive individuals receive systematic advantages in domains like hiring, pay, and legal outcomes, “lookism” attracts far less moral outrage than race- or gender-based discrimination. The authors asked whether this apparent tolerance reflects genuine acceptance of attractiveness-based bias, or whether people simply fail to notice it in the first place.
>The present research consisted of six primary studies and two supplemental studies examining how people judge the fairness of statistically biased decision outcomes. Across all studies, a total of 3,591 participants were recruited from the United States and the Netherlands, primarily through Prolific and university subject pools, with several of the samples recruited to be broadly demographically representative.
It’s true. There’s an awful lot of activists these days, but accounting for or even acknowledging the halo effect in society seems very much taboo.
It’s unfair but 100% how it is. We are animals born to procreate.
Look at the number of C level executives over a certain height. It’s something.
Sounds about right. Any time a man posts about how they’ve been treated due to their looks in their life, a flood of comments will immediately appear telling them that it’s actually entirely their own fault and their personality, refusing to even consider that some of their problems may be outside of their control.
Imagine equality of outcome proponents for this privilege.
Attractiveness bias is tricky because attractiveness is mostly genetic, but not entirely. Someone who works out, eats well, has good hygiene, is fashionable etc. will be significantly more attractive than a genetically identical person who isn’t. All of those traits stem from other positive traits like intelligence, diligence, or social intelligence.
So while attractiveness is mostly luck, it still slightly stems from one’s character, making it more of a gray area than judging someone based off gender or race.
I see this at my own workplace as well. Better looking people move into higher positions. Pretty privilege is very much a real thing. I’ve even noticed that I get treated much better when I dress more nicely out in public. People are hellbent on looks.
The truth of human development is that as a human species we are primarily developing via social evolution, not genetic evolution. We are still genetically evolving, but this is secondary to our social evolution. Social evolution includes the development of our political-economic systems, including the development of class society, our environment, and our social relations. This implies that revolution is the way to move the human species forward, not procreation of any particular type or group of human beings.
the sexual selection doesn’t exist crowd is busy this morning
In all seriousness, I imagine that this kind of discrimination is much more awkward to call out.
Like “don’t talk to women that way” is one thing but…you know, maybe people don’t have the language to comfortably do it yet. Like “hey don’t talk to that less conventionally attractive person like that” or “are you just assuming that because he/she isn’t attractive?” Kind of makes you sound like a jerk too
Im a trans woman that have a good passsing and is somewhat attractive for a woman of my age.
I’m a lot of people support me more and/or more comfortable with my transition because of that and it would be harder if I was ugly or had less cisspassing.
Some attractive people think they’re treated worse.
True! Society teaches us to notice race and gender bias, but lookism, discrimination based on how attractive someone is, flies under the radar. People judged as less attractive can face fewer opportunities, harsher criticism, or social exclusion, often without anyone even realising it.
It’s like an invisible bias that sneaks into jobs, dating, and daily interactions.
A lot more subjective and harder to prove that there has been discrimination
The ‘Don Draper’ effect. Mad Men is an interesting case study of what more attractive people can get away with.
I guess I’m in the minority to be biased *against* ‘attractive’ people.
If I ever run my own company I will seriously try to give hiring preference to ugly short people. They are underpaid by the market – free money for me.
We all enjoy things that look nice. If you were given the option to choose between a 1979 Honda Civic or a 2025 Mercedes Benz which would you choose? Clothes that are faded, and ripped, or brand new? Selling a product? Photoshoot with a model, or homeless person?
Even a child would pick the more appealing object. It’s no surprise that attractive humans are attractive.
People overlook wherever biases they themselves hold.
As long as ugly people can be dismissed as creepy and unsafe, nothing will change, because, well…
Pretty people get away with ao much.
On the other hand, ugly people usually feel underprivileged.
All anedoctical observations.
Probably the only “corporate” thing I didn’t despise about Walmart was their willingness to hire the overweight, the not attractive, the schlubs. They were promoted too, not just hired and hidden somewhere out of sight.
Life isn’t fair. It never will be. So play your cards the best you can. Complaining about it or opting out is just shooting yourself in the foot. Your life will just be even harder the more you resist reality with denial or coping mechanisms that don’t help improve your situation.
rule 1. be attractive.
rule 2. don’t be unattractive.
I wonder if this discrimination is inherent. If I had to guess, it is, and we’re never taught to recognize and work on it. I think kids need to be made aware of this fact more thoroughly and explicitly, so as to mitigate any unconscious discrimination, even at the mental level.
Don’t hate me cause I’m beautiful is an actual thing too…