THE EFFECTS OF PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS ON JOB-RELATED OUTCOMES: A META-ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES

• Published in: Personnel psychology Vol. 56; no. 2; pp. 431 - 462
• Main Authors: HOSODA, MEGUMI, STONE-ROMERO, EUGENE F., COATS, GWEN
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2003
• Subjects: Bias; Cognition & reasoning; College Students; Correlation; Helping Relationship; Human resource management; Interpersonal Attraction; Interpersonal Relationship; Job Applicants; Meta Analysis; Perceptions; Personal appearance; Personality; Personality Theories; Qualifications; Social Cognition; Stereotypes; Studies; Systematic review; Working conditions; United States > US
• ISSN: 0031-5826; 1744-6570
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1744-6570.2003.tb00157.x

We report the findings of a meta‐analytic review of experimental studies concerned with the biasing effect of physical attractiveness on a variety of job‐related outcomes. In support of implicit personality theory, attractive individuals were found to fare better than unattractive individuals in terms of a number of such outcomes. The weighted mean effect size, d, was .37 for all studies. In addition, tests for moderating effects showed that (a) the attractiveness bias did not differ between studies that provided low versus high amounts of job‐relevant information about the targets, (b) the same bias was greater for within‐subjects research designs than for between‐subjects designs, (c) professionals were as susceptible to the bias as were college students, (d) attractiveness was as important for men as for women, and (e) the biasing effect of attractiveness has decreased in recent years. Implications of these findings are considered.