Page 320 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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12. PHYSICALLY UNATTRACTIVE BIAS
UNRESOLVED ISSUES IN THE RESEARCH
ON ATTRACTIVENESS BIASES
Although a main effect for attractiveness is frequently found, there are
several unresolved issues that need to be addressed in future research.
First, it is unclear whether attractiveness biases reflect a rejection of the
highly unattractive, a preference for the highly attractive, or both. There
is some indication that there is a strong rejection of highly unattractive
persons and very little difference in the rating of the highly and moder­
ately attractive persons (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986), but few studies have
included a moderate level of attractiveness. Also, the sampling of stimuli
used in the manipulation of attractiveness is often inadequate (Guion &
Gibson, 1988), with most studies using static displays of facial attraction
to the neglect of other physical cues such as nonverbal behavior (Raines,
Hechtman, & Rosenthal, 1990) and vocal quality (Zuckerman, Hodgins, &
Miyako, 1990). A more serious problem is that the sample of stimuli used
in the manipulation of attractiveness is often small (typically one to four
photographs) and unrepresentative (Fontenelle, Peek-Phillips, & Lane,
1985).
Another unresolved issue is whether the target person's sex moderates
the effects of attractiveness. Contrary to the common belief that physical
attractiveness is unimportant for men, attractive men are consistently pre­
ferred over unattractive men. A possible manifestation of the importance
of looks to men is the increasing frequency with which men are undergo­
ing cosmetic surgery to enhance their careers ("Men try to put a new face
on careers," Wall Street Journal, August 28,1991; "Workplace edge: plastic
surgery." Journal of Commerce, August 23, 1999; "Leaders: The right to
be beautiful," The Economist May 24, 2003). The effect of attractiveness
for women is much less clear. Although most studies seem to show that
attractive women are preferred over unattractive women, a few studies
show that attractive women are disadvantaged in traditionally male jobs
(Heilman & Saruwatari, 1979; Heilman & Stopeck, 1985a, 1985b). However,
this "beauty is beastly" effect is possibly the result of the idiosyncratic char­
acteristics of the photographs used in the manipulation of attractiveness,
and research is needed with broader samples of stimuli to see if the ef­
fect generalizes across target persons (Bieber & Dipboye, 1989). In a recent
experiment using a sample of 100 male and 100 female pictures and over
30 occupations, evidence was found for a bias against attractive females
but only in a few extremely sex-typed occupations (Podratz & Dipboye,
2002; Maccarone, 2003).
Still another issue is that the typical experiment places subjects in the
role of passive observers who judge resumes or videotapes on the basis