Page 315 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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A female employee has the best record in securing contracts for her account­
ing firm, but her candidacy for partner is deferred largely on the basis of her
appearance. She is advised to "wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear
jewelry."
Evaluating employees on the basis of their looks is not always inappro­
priate, but incidents such as these are common and can easily undermine
efforts to foster a fair and just workplace. Moreover, appearance standards
and the rejection of those who are "physically unattractive" can undercut
diversity by rationalizing racism, sexism, ageism, and other forms of prej­
udice. Consequently, efforts to encourage organizational diversity need to
take into account physical appearance biases and the other stigmas that are
normally addressed in such efforts. In examining this issue, I first review
the research demonstrating a bias against physical unattractive persons
and consider whether this is a trivial effect that deserves our attention.
Some of the alternative sources of this bias are then explored, along with
implications for the management of appearance in organizations.

EVIDENCE OF BIAS AGAINST THE PHYSICALLY UNATTRACTIVE

"Attractive persons" is used to refer to those who conform to norms for
attractiveness on both mutable facets of appearance, such as dress and
grooming, and relatively immutable facets, such as facial features, bodily
weight, and stature. "Unattractive persons" are those who deviate from
these norms. From a humanistic perspective, one could legitimately argue
that everyone is beautiful, but the harsh reality is that there are widely
held standards of attractiveness (Berry & McArthur, 1985,1986; Cunning­
ham, 1986). Jackson (1992) concluded that"... contrary to folk wisdom that
'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' there is remarkable consensus in peo-
ple's ratings of others' attractiveness. Consensus has been observed across
a variety of rater characteristics—such as sex, race, age, and socioeconomic
status—and across cultural backgrounds" (p. 4). Similar conclusions were
reached in an exhaustive meta-analysis (Langlois et al., 2000). The authors
found agreement among raters on attractiveness across both ethnic and
cultural groups. Additionally, attractive children and adults are evaluated
more positively and treated more favorably than those who are unattrac­
tive regardless of their familiarity with the rater.
Not only do people appear to agree in their judgments of attractiveness,
but also, not surprisingly, people are personally attracted to those who
conform to conventional standards of physical attractiveness and tend to