Disadvantages of Being Beautiful
Effects of Being Beautiful
Beautiful people are all around us: on billboards, on TV and at the
movies—some of them even inhabit our everyday lives.
Many people use beauty to compare good but there was a pains of
being beautiful. The beauty bias is probably not as strong as some have
suggested and not as powerful as we might imagine. For example, when it comes
to income, in most lines of work it's better to be smarter than more
attractive. The same goes for persuasion, self-esteem and even
attraction: other personal qualities can easily trump beauty.
Psychologists have also begun to uncover the dark side of being
beautiful. Given what we already know about the beautiful it may be difficult
to have much sympathy, but here are five pains:
A1. Less likely to be hired
(sometimes)
Although beauty can help in the search for a job, it's not always true.
When employers are making a decision about someone of the same sex, they can
let their jealousy get the better of them.
One recent study has suggested that people who are highly attractive are
at a disadvantage in the hiring process when the decision-makers are the same
sex. It seems we perceive beautiful people who are the same sex as a threat.
A2. Beauty is beastly
Similarly there's evidence that female beauty can be a problem in jobs
with strong gender stereotypes. For example a beautiful woman may be at a
disadvantage when applying for a job which is associated with masculinity,
like a prison guard or a mechanical engineer (Johnson et al, 2010).
The same doesn't seem to be true for attractive men. They can happily
apply for jobs as nurses, lingerie salespersons or HR managers without their
beauty counting against them.
A3. Perceived to be less talented
The halo effect tells us that when we judge more attractive members of
the opposite sex, we generally assume they're more talented than those who are
less attractive. This happens even though what they do or say is no cleverer
than less attractive people.
But this changes when it's members of the same sex. In a study by Anderson and Nida (1978) highly
attractive people of the same sex were judged as less talented than
average-looking people.
A4. Lucky to be pretty
If beautiful people are successful, is it because of their talent, or is
it just their looks? After all, people are lucky to be beautiful and we know
all the advantages of that.
Research finds that when judging their own sex, people are more likely
to think beautiful people's success is down to their beauty, not their talent.
So you're lucky to be pretty, but probably just rely on that rather than talent.
A5. Social rejection
Although attractive people are generally more popular socially, there's
some evidence that very attractive people can experience social rejection from
members of their own sex.
People in relationships also protect themselves from beauty by ignoring
it. Research shows that when we're thinking about love we automatically ignore
attractive members of the opposite sex, probably to protect our feelings about
our long-term partner.
Gender and jealousy
Most of the research has been done on heterosexuals but it's possible
similar biases operate for gay people. For both gay and straight, the extent of
the biases probably depends on how attractive you are (or at least how
attractive you perceive yourself to be). People who are themselves attractive
probably don't feel as defensive around other attractive people, so the biases
are likely to be weaker for them.
Although we all know about the benefits of being beautiful, it's easy to
forget the pitfalls. This psychological research is a reminder that beauty can
be threatening. It can threaten our relationships, our work and our image of
ourselves. We admire it and defer to it, but sometimes we have to defend
ourselves against it.
Like us in fb: www.facebook.com/psychtronics
Image source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1376800
Post a Comment