Эффект внешней привлекательности: социальные и правовые последствия

Stereotype
The physical attractiveness stereotype, commonly known as the "beautiful is good" stereotype, The target benefits from what has been coined as “pretty privilege”, namely social, economic, and political advantages or benefits. Physical attractiveness can have a significant effect on how people are judged in terms of employment or social opportunities, friendship, sexual behavior, and marriage. The physical attractiveness stereotype will bias an observer's opinions and decisions when comparing people of different attractiveness levels. There is evidence of this stereotype affecting decision making within social settings, but also within the workplace and the judicial system.

In the years since the publication of the original study, further research has bolstered the physical attractiveness stereotype and expanded its influence into other areas.

Physical attraction also has a strong relationship with how intelligent one is perceived. For both adults and children, attractive individuals are expected to be more intellectually competent than unattractive individuals. This effect is stronger in adults and also stronger in males. Between equally attractive males and females, the males will be perceived as more intelligent. This perception exists despite little to no evidence that attractiveness is correlated with actual competence.

Research has shown that this stereotype exists in the workplace as well. A meta analysis looking at how one's level of physical attractiveness can affect various job related outcomes showed a strong relationship between attractive individuals and better job outcomes. The report accumulated over 60 study results and showed that attractive individuals were perceived as better employees. They are more likely to be hired and promoted, as well as ranked higher in performance evaluations and employment potential than unattractive counterparts. This stereotype is present for and affects both men and women as neither the gender of the attractive individual nor the gender of the observer influences the relationship. A meta analysis conducted by Ronald Mazella and Alan Feingold investigated the effect of a defendant’s physical attractiveness on jury rulings through mock trials to better understand juries’ decision making. It was found that defendants who were physically attractive, female, and of high socioeconomic status received weaker sentences. Juries were more likely to find a physically unattractive defendant guilty than an attractive defendant. Additionally, for certain crimes, juries recommended lesser punishments for attractive individuals. In the case of robbery, rape, and cheating, the attractiveness of the defendant contributed to a lesser sentence. However, in the case of negligent homicide, attractive individuals received harsher punishments than their unattractive counterparts, though the effect size of these findings were notably small. Researchers posit that this occurs because attractive individuals are held to higher standards than unattractive individuals. Therefore, they are treated harsher when they make a mistake, such as in the case of negligent homicide. However, for crimes that shared relations with attractiveness, such as swindling, they received harsher sentences compared to their unattractive counterparts. This is potentially a result of jurors perceiving defendants to weaponise their attractiveness, hindering stereotype congruent associations to be exercised in decision making. Generally, such results were rationalised by acknowledging that benefits reaped from the physically attractive stereotype were not unidirectional. Some studies posited that when attractive defendants provided justification, jurors anchored to this more positively, and were more forgiving in sentencing. However, when justification was low, jurors could not characterise defendants with stereotype congruent traits of attractiveness, realising no benefits over unattractive defendants. The effects physically attractive stereotypes have on memory also underscore the fragility of certain judicial processes. Empirical evidence revealed that people rely on stereotypes in inferring forgotten details when recalling personal memories, or as a heuristic to ease complex decision making. One study found that unattractive/“criminal” faces were more memorable and easier recognised. Another study indirectly supported this, however, their results indicated that, more significantly, participants failed to recognise individuals intra categorically (e. g., attractive individuals from each other). Such recognition error was also demonstrated with other variables such as race, with some highlighting that people were notably confident in their judgements. The implications of this on eyewitness testimonies can be inferred, where unattractive individuals are particularly vulnerable to these stereotype motivated recognition errors, especially when sharing similar characteristics to the actual perpetrator or those associated with criminality. Current literature has also found that asking witnesses to select out of options can make them feel more confident in their answers, where this is misconstrued as accurate. For example, providing a series of mugshots for them to select the perpetrator. It is encouraged for them to freely recall information instead. Studies have also found that stereotype motivated behaviour is potentially easily reversible, where simply informing participants to be more deliberate and conscious in mitigating stereotypical thinking can almost entirely remove its biassed effects.

In a review of studies done that examine perception of students in the education system, it was found that attractive students were treated more favorably by their teachers than unattractive students. Consistent with the perception that attractive individuals are more intelligent, research shows that teachers have higher expectations for attractive students. They expect these students to be more intelligent, earn better grades, and have better social attributes than other, less attractive students. Furthermore, various studies done between 1960–1985 show that attractive students actually earned higher scores on standardized tests. Researchers believe this is an example of a self fulfilling prophecy, where the teacher's higher expectations for the attractive students cause them to work harder and perform better.

There are recent studies that indicate that the physical attractiveness stereotype can also be a negative bias and disadvantage the target. Research suggests that there might exist an exception to pretty privilege when the viewer and the target are of the same sex. In the study, targets were less likely to be recommended for a job and admission into university compared to average looking individuals. This might stem from a desire to avoid perceived self threats posed by attractive same sex targets. Especially individuals who lack self esteem are more likely to avoid these threats than those with high self esteem.