No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
The Labor Market Return to an Attractive Face: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Abstract
We provide new evidence on the link between beauty and hiring practices in the labor market. Specifically, we study if people with less attractive faces are less likely to be contacted after submitting a resume. Our empirical strategy is based on an experimental approach. We sent fictitious resumes with pictures of attractive and unattractive faces to real job openings in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We find that attractive people receive 36 percent more responses (callbacks) than unattractive people. Given the experimental design, this difference can be attributed to the exogenous manipulation of facial attractiveness of our fake job applicants.
... A large body of studies has suggested that people use similar criteria for determining facial attractiveness, although some individual and cross-cultural differences have been noted. One criterion of facial attractiveness is defined using ideal ratios (Valenzano et al., 2006), such as neoclassical canons (Schmid et al., 2008;Jayaratne et al., 2012), golden proportions (Borissavlievitch and Hautecoer, 1958;Jefferson, 2004), facial thirds (Farkas and Schendel, 1995;Farkas and Kolar, 1987), and new golden ratios (Pallett et al., 2010;Bóo et al., 2013). These putative rules define a physical measure for facial attractiveness using spatial relations between parts of the face. ...
... To estimate the association between the generated images and human perception of facial attractiveness, the putative ratios of facial attractiveness, including the golden ratio and new golden ratios, were employed to quantify the generated images. The rules of the golden ratio can be used measure ratios between facial elements to obtain the local putative ratios of facial attractiveness (Jefferson, 2004;Holland, 2008), whereas the new golden ratios give global features of these putative ratios (Pallett et al., 2010;Bóo et al., 2013). ...
... This result might have been obtained because of the dataset used in this study. Although some psychophysical studies of putative ratios with human observers have shown that the new golden ratios can be employed to judge both female and male faces (Bóo et al., 2013;Yoo et al., 2013), to the best of our knowledge, the difference in size effect between female and male face images has not been studied. ...
Empirical evidence has shown that there is an ideal arrangement of facial features (ideal ratios) that can optimize the attractiveness of a person’s face. These putative ratios define facial attractiveness in terms of spatial relations and provide important rules for measuring the attractiveness of a face. In this paper, we show that a deep neural network (DNN) model can learn putative ratios from face images based only on categorical annotation when no annotated facial features for attractiveness are explicitly given. To this end, we conducted three experiments. In Experiment 1, we trained a DNN model to recognize the attractiveness (female/male × high/low attractiveness) of face in the images using four category-specific neurons (CSNs). In Experiment 2, face-like images were generated by reversing the DNN model (e.g., deconvolution). These images depict the intuitive attributes encoded in CSNs of the four categories of facial attractiveness and reveal certain consistencies with reported evidence on the putative ratios. In Experiment 3, simulated psychophysical experiments on face images with varying putative ratios reveal changes in the activity of the CSNs that are remarkably similar to those of human judgements reported in a previous study. These results show that the trained DNN model can learn putative ratios as key features for the representation of facial attractiveness. This finding advances our understanding of facial attractiveness via DNN-based perspective approaches.
... The results show that both men and women receive significantly lower callback rates in the event of obesity, but also that the results tend to be driven by obesity for women and by attractiveness for men. Ruffle and Shtudiner (2015) respond to advertised job openings in Israel, finding that CVs of women with no picture have a significantly higher callback rate than those of attractive or plain-looking women. 2 Lopez Bóo et al. (2013) find that attractive applicants are called more often than unattractive ones, but unlike Ruffle and Shtudiner (2015), they find stronger effects among male candidates. An Italian field experiment using fictitious CVs is conducted by Patacchini et al. (2015). ...
... The first strand of the literature, such as Goldin and Rouse (2000) who examine the effect of blind auditioning on the hiring process for selecting musicians for symphony orchestras, measures the amount of gender discrimination. Many other contributions carry out an audit technique (see, among others, Bertrand and Mullainathan 2004;Carlsson and Rooth 2007;Drydakis and Vlassis 2010;Wood et al. 2009;Rooth 2009;Ruffle and Shtudiner 2015;Lopez Bóo et al. 2013). The weakness of this method lies in three main aspects. ...
... The design of our experiment gives us a complete control over candidates' backgrounds. This is in line with, as previously illustrated by Ruffle and Shtudiner (2015) and Lopez Bóo et al. (2013). Indeed, our applicants are very similar in every respect for each kind of job offer as long as the differences only concern gender, nativeness, photo and attractiveness. ...
This paper assesses the impact of being attractive and not being native on the gender gap in the opportunity of obtaining a job in Italy. To do so, we propose a field experiment that consists in sending 9680 fictitious curricula vitae to real firms looking for employees. We estimate an Heckit model in order to consider different response from firms and then to calculate the probability to receive a callback. We show that gender gap in opportunity of receiving a callback is a very important issue and this gap is affected by interaction with both attractiveness and not being italian natives, especially for the most qualified jobs.
... This trend is present in different cultures and societies, and has also led to academic studies on the influence of physical appearance. Previous research has found that the appearance influences the labor market in several ways: attractive workers receive higher pay [1] [2], are more likely to be hired [3] [4], and have more diverse career choices [5]. ...
... Reference [17] was the first to suggest that better-looking people earn more than average-looking people across occupations in the labor market. More recently, [18] and [3] conducted field experiments that improved our understanding of the beauty premium. One study [18] investigated the performance of good-looking candidates in the hiring process by applying for 2656 jobs advertised in Israel. ...
... According to the authors, a substantial part of this gap can be attributed to female jealousy and envy (noting that 93% of the respondents in their sample were female). In study [3], researchers digitally manipulated 50 genuine photographs of men and women so they would match (attractive) or deviate from (unattractive) the two golden ratios of facial proportions documented in [19]. They found that attractive people receive 36% more callbacks than others. ...
... In a pioneering study, Hamermesh and Biddle (1994) attribute wage differentials related to appearance to taste-based discrimination, productivity differences associated with consumers, and occupational crowding. Later studies present further empirical evidence of the beauty premium (Biddle and Hamermesh 1998;Hamermesh et al. 2002;Fleener 2005;Fletcher 2009;Rooth 2009;Harper 2010;Hamermesh 2011;Hamermesh 2013;Bóo et al. 2013;Von Bose 2013;Doorley and Sierminska 2015;Patacchini et al. 2015;Bruton 2016). ...
... 6 Rooth (2009) designs a field experiment by submitting pairs of facial photos that reflect differences in weight and finds that obese individuals are less likely to be called for an interview. López Bóo et al. (2013) conduct a randomized field experiment by sending fictitious resumes for sales, secretaries, receptionists, or general unskilled positions. They find that attractive individuals are more likely to be called for an interview than unattractive individuals and the difference in the beauty premium between women and men is insignificant in Argentina. ...
... In the second stage, we selected four entertainment celebrities commonly considered an attractive woman, an ordinary-looking woman, an attractive man, and an ordinary-looking man, respectively. Based on the appearance of the entertainment star of the same gender, we synthesized the real ID photo on each resume using the portrait synthesizer and Adobe 8 López Bóo et al. (2013) investigate these occupations: sales-commercial; administrative-accountancy; marketing-advertisement; secretaries-receptionists-customer service; gastronomy; or general unskilled positions. Patacchini et al. (2015) explore seven occupations: administrative clerk, bookkeeper, call center operator, receptionist, sales clerk, secretary, and shop assistant. ...
This study uses a field experiment to resolve the difficulties of quantifying personal appearance and identify a direct causal relationship between appearance and employment in China. The experiment reveals that taste-based pure appearance discrimination exists at the pre-interview stage. There are significant gender-specific heterogeneous effects of education on appearance discrimination: having better educational credentials reduces appearance discrimination among men but not among women. Moreover, attributes of the labor market, companies, and vacancies matter. Beauty premiums are larger in big cities with higher concentrations of women and in male-focused research positions. Similarly, the beauty premium is larger for vacancies with higher remuneration.
... In recent years, labor market discrimination is increasingly drawing attention of both the academicians and practitioners. The main focus is on non-cognitive attributes such as race, age, and gender, and differences in employment patterns and earnings by these characteristics that cannot be attributed to other (cognitive) attributes (Krause, Rinne, and Zimmermann 2012;Boo, Rossi, and Urzua 2013). In this realm, a burgeoning strand of literature examines the impact of 'beauty' in determining labor market outcomes, particularly access to job market. ...
... Therefore, it is impossible to estimate any kind of labor market discrimination on the basis of color complexion using official statistics. Lastly, a growing literature documents that good-looking people are more likely to be employed and can earn more than those who are less physically attractive (Boo, Rossi, and Urzua 2013;Ruffle and Shtudiner 2014;Parrett 2015). As in many developing countries, employers in Pakistan explicitly ask applicants to include a photograph in their CVs. ...
... Despite the fact, these studies provide a useful insight on labor market outcomes, however, the studies to date is seen to confine itself to the context of developed countries and very little is known about developing markets. Boo, Rossi, and Urzua (2013) analyze the existence of discrimination in Buenos Aries, Argentina, based on race. They find that white-race people receive 36% more call backs than indigenous applicants. ...
This study aims to investigate the role of facial complexion on applicant’s employability in Pakistani labor market. We carried out a resume audit study. In doing so, we sent 1216 fictitious curricula vitae (CVs) against 304 real job advertisements. Four CVs were sent against each advertisement which contained the pictures of fair and dark males and females. The results show that odds of receiving callbacks are 31.5% higher for a fair-skinned applicant compared to the applicant with dark complexion. Moreover, fair females have 28.5% higher probability in receiving (more) callbacks than fair male applicants. This discriminatory pattern in labor market exists across both front and back office jobs, however, the odds of receiving callbacks by fair applicants, particularly females, are higher in front office jobs. Further, we divide our sample into jobs advertised by companies themselves and jobs through recruitment agencies. Our results show that the impact of facial complexion is present in both recruitment sources, nevertheless, it is more pronounced when recruitment is carried out through employment agencies. Lastly, we find the evidence of beauty premium across various occupational categories, except finance and accounting.
... We also examine reliance on facial appearance in an applied settings. We focus on the personnel selection context, as previous studies have shown that hiring decisions are influenced by the facial appearance of job candidates (Bóo, Rossi, & Urzúa, 2013;Gomulya et al., 2017;Ling, Luo, & She, 2019). In Study 4 (n = 390, preregistered), we test whether the perceived diagnostic value of facial appearance for making hiring decisions varies as a function of the desired personality traits of job candidates. ...
... Going beyond impressions formation based on facial photographs, Study 4 examined the perceived diagnostic value of facial appearance in a more applied setting. Previous studies have shown that hiring decisions are influenced by the facial appearance of candidates (Bóo et al., 2013;Gomulya et al., 2017;Ling et al., 2019). In the current study, we tested if the diagnostic value of facial appearance in a personnel selection context depends on which personality trait people are looking for in job candidates. ...
Faces play a central role in person perception. People spontaneously judge others' personality based on their facial appearance and these impressions guide many consequential decisions. When do people rely on facial appearance? In five studies (N = 1936, four preregistered), we test whether reliance on facial appearance depends on the goal of impression formation (i.e., on which trait dimension targets are evaluated). Trait impressions are, to a large extent, based on the resemblance of facial cues to emotional expressions. As emotional expressiveness is a central component of sociability, we hypothesized that people would more readily perceive sociability in faces. We find that facial appearance is seen as more indicative of a person's sociability than their morality or competence (Study 1, n = 338), and this was particularly true for sociability traits that are characterized by emotional expressions (e.g., enthusiasm, playfulness; Study 2, n = 162). We find the same pattern when examining the influence of facial cues on judgment and decision-making. People are more confident in the accuracy of their trait impressions when judging sociability (Study 3, n = 527), they value information on the facial appearance of job candidates more when looking for a sociable employee (Study 4, n = 390), and they view reliance on facial appearance when making hiring decisions as more appropriate and more effective when looking for a sociable employee (Study 5, n = 519). Together, our results provide converging evidence that people view facial appearance as especially relevant for judging a person's sociability.
... That, by statistics, attractive individuals have more: job opportunity, occupational success, and a spouse whose potential earning are higher. (Biddle & Hamermesh, 1998;Bóo, Rossi, & Urzúa, 2013;Cawley, 2004;Fletcher, 2009). ...
... Despite controlling for education and occupation, the beautiful politician received more votes: an increase in a measure of beauty by one standard deviation associated with an increase of 20% and 17% in the number of votes for average non-incumbent parliament candidates and municipal election, respectively. Later, Bóo et al. (2013) analysed in a greater depth the hiring process in multiple occupations when a large number of fictitious resumes were manipulated and sent to employment ads posted in Argentina. Supporting former studies, the attractive workers received 36% more callback and being contacted sooner. ...
Aside from academics suggesting that low-physical-attractive prisoners may face difficulty reentering the labour market: permitting employers to access criminal history records aggravates the situation. The current study aims to alleviate this discrimination by generating more beauty premiums to prisoners through cosmetic surgery. The choice experiments (CEs) on hypothetical cosmetic surgery faces of 18 Thai male prisoners were conducted. In which every choice set, the respondents were required to make a tradeoff between beauty and criminal history records. The results show that cosmetic surgery generates beauty premiums to prisoners in both the formal and informal sectors with the odds ratio or increase of the utility of 1.75 and 1.754, respectively. Contrarily, the criminal history records result in discrimination to prisoners’ employments: decreasing job opportunities by 82.8% and 51% in the formal and informal sectors, respectively. The MWTP values show an additional salary to the cosmetic surgery groups for 2,600 baht approximately in both sectors. Besides contributing to the literature, the current study sheds light on the importance of physical appearance and criminal history records as one of the main barriers to prisoners’ re-entry. The findings could serve as new knowledge for policymakers to improve the success rate of prisoners’ reintegration.
... Third, we examine the perceived diagnostic value of facial appearance in an applied settings. We focus on the personnel selection context, as previous studies have shown that hiring decisions are influenced by the facial appearance of job candidates (Bóo et al., 2013;Gomulya et al., 2017;Ling et al., 2019). In Study 2 (n = 390), we test whether the perceived diagnostic value of facial appearance for making hiring decisions varies as a function of the desired personality traits of job candidates. ...
... Going beyond impressions formation based on facial photographs, Study 2 examined the perceived diagnostic value of facial appearance in a more applied setting. Previous studies have shown that hiring decisions are influenced by the facial appearance of candidates (Bóo et al., 2013;Gomulya et al., 2017;Ling et al., 2019). In the current study, we tested if the diagnostic value of facial appearance in a personnel selection context depends on which personality trait people are looking for in job candidates. ...
Faces play a central role in person perception. People spontaneously judge others’ personality based on their facial appearance and these impressions guide many consequential decisions. Under what conditions do people rely on facial appearance? Here, we test whether reliance on facial appearance depends on the goal of impression formation (i.e., on which trait dimension targets are evaluated). Trait impressions are, to a large extent, based on the resemblance of facial cues to emotion expressions. As emotional expressiveness is a central component of sociability, we hypothesized that people would more readily perceive sociability in faces. Across three preregistered studies (N = 1,436), we find that facial appearance is indeed seen as more indicative of a person’s sociability than their morality or competence. We find the same pattern when examining the influence of facial cues on judgment and decision-making. People are more confident in the accuracy of their trait impressions when judging sociability (vs. morality or competence; Study 1, n = 527), they value information on the facial appearance of job candidates more when looking for a sociable (vs. moral or competent) employee (Study 2, n = 390), and they view reliance on facial appearance when making hiring decisions as more appropriate and more effective when looking for a sociable (vs. moral or competent) employee (Study 3, n = 519). Together, our results provide converging evidence that people view facial appearance as especially relevant for judging a person’s sociability.
... For example, since the seminal paper by Hamermesch and Biddle (1994), research in labor economics has documented the existence of a "beauty premium." Previous studies find that attractive candidates are more often and sooner contacted for job interviews and are more likely to gain employment and receive higher ratings (Barrick et al., 2009;Eagly et al., 1991), especially if they are male (López Bóo et al., 2013;Ruffle and Shtudiner, 2015). Attractive candidates are also able to negotiate higher wages (Mobius and Rosenblat, 2006) and make more rapid career progressions (Biddle and Hamermesch, 1998;Hamermesch, 2011). ...
... Third, previous studies in labor economics find that attractive candidates are more often contacted for job interviews. This evidence holds only (Ruffle and Shtudiner, 2015) or especially (López Bóo et al., 2013) if they are male. Ruffle and Shtudiner (2015) explore several explanations for this discrimination against attractive women, including female jealousy and envy. ...
We apply insights from research in social psychology and labor economicsto the domain of entrepreneurial finance and investigate how founder chief executive officers’ (founder CEOs’) facial attractiveness influences firm valuation. Leveraging the novel context ofinitial coin offerings (ICOs), we document a pronounced founder CEO beauty premium, with a positive relationship between founder CEO attractiveness and firm valuation. We find only very limited evidence of stereotype-based evaluations, through the association of founder CEO attractiveness with latent traits such as competence, intelligence, likeability, or trustworthiness. Rather, attractiveness seems to bear economic value per se, especially in a context in which investors basetheir decisions on a limited information set. Indeed, attractiveness has a sustainable effect on post-ICO performance.
... There have been many studies on facial attractiveness since the 1990s. At first, some standards were formulated based on the ratio of facial features, such as the golden ratio (1:0618) [18], the facial rule of thirds [19], and the new golden ratio [20], and so on. The aforementioned standard ratios evaluate facial attractiveness by using the correlation between the various parts of the face. ...
An important consideration in medical plastic surgery is the evaluation of the patient’s facial symmetry. However, because facial attractiveness is a slightly individualized cognitive experience, it is difficult to determine face attractiveness manually. This study aimed to train a model for assessing facial attractiveness using transfer learning while also using the fine-grained image model to separate similar images by first learning features. In this case, the system can make assessments based on the input of facial photos. Thus, doctors can quickly and objectively treat patients’ scoring and save time for scoring. The transfer learning was combined with CNN, Xception, and attention mechanism models for training, using the SCUT-FBP5500 dataset for pre-training and freezing the weights as the transfer learning model. Then, we trained the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital Taiwan dataset to train the model based on transfer learning. The evaluation uses the mean absolute error percentage (MAPE) value. The root mean square error (RMSE) value is used as the basis for experimental adjustment and the quantitative standard for the model’s predictive. The best model can obtain 0.50 in RMSE and 18.5% average error in MAPE. A web page was developed to infer the deep learning model to visualize the predictive model.
... Apparently, this effect is present not only in private interpersonal relationships but also in professional situations where the attractiveness stereotype has been proven to hold in a myriad of contexts. Research has found that attractive individuals enjoy better treatment in the labor market (e.g., Hamermesh and Biddle, 1994 ;Averett and Korenman, 1996 ;López Bóo et al., 2013 ); for example, beauty premiums in employee salaries (e.g., Frieze et al., 1991 ;Biddle and Hamermesh, 1998 ;Kanazawa and Still, 2018 ) and better career opportunities both in the military ( Mazur at al., 1984 ) and in the private sector (e.g., Li et al., 2019 ) as well as in academia (e.g., Hamermesh and Parker, 2005 ), where attractive university professors are perceived to offer better lectures. Moreover, individuals' physical appearance may also influence the investment decisions of investors in hedge funds ( Pareek and Zuckerman, 2014 ). ...
Despite an extensive body of research indicating multifaceted advantages for employees deemed physically attractive, factors that limit or even negate the attractiveness premium have not been sufficiently investigated. In this paper, we are interested in whether a rich set of physical appearance factors matter when performance information is transparently available, rather than – as is mostly the case in the labor force – imperfect or costly to obtain. To this end, we explore the labor market of professional football players in one of the world's most prestigious football leagues, namely the German Bundesliga. We investigate whether a rich set of physical appearance factors (including subjective attractiveness, facial symmetry, facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), and body gestalt) affect players' chances of being nominated or receiving the prestigious Player of the Month award. This study offers a unique opportunity to explore selection heuristics among team captains who are responsible for the nomination of the players, and the public who votes on the three top selections by captains. Our results indicate that individual performance tends to be a stronger driver of award success than physical appearance. Interestingly, performance can moderate some physical appearance factors (e.g., beauty matters more for lower performing players) and some positive assortative effects between captains and players along physical appearance are observed (captains with higher fWHR scores are more likely to nominate players who also have higher fWHR scores). In general, heuristics for captains are easier to identify empirically than for the public. We also find some differences; for example, only the public demonstrates a bias towards domestic players.
... Experimental methods have been implemented in other contexts. See, for example, studies on the effects of appearance on trust(Wilson and Eckel, 2006), wages(Mobius and Rosenblat, 2006) and employability (e.g.,Boo et al., 2013;Ruffle and Shtudiner, 2015). ...
This study examines whether physical appearance helps children gain popularity in their friendship networks using data from China’s migrant schools. Negative Binomial models, using appearance scores (created by a facial-recognition program incorporating numerous individuals’ appearance preferences) to predict children’s network centrality, yield statistically significant and positive appearance effects. The results hold even after netting out influences of children’s physical, cognitive, and mental development, family background, and school quality.
... Apparently, this effect is present not only in private interpersonal relationships but also in professional situations where the attractiveness stereotype has been proven to hold in a myriad of contexts. Research has found that attractive individuals enjoy better treatment in the labor market (e.g., Hamermesh & Biddle, 1994;Averett & Korenman, 1996;López Bóo et al., 2013); for example, beauty premiums in employee salaries (e.g., Frieze et al., 1991;Biddle & Hamermesh, 1998;Kanazawa & Still, 2018) and better career opportunities both in the military (Mazur at al., 1984) and in the private sector (e.g., Li et al, 2019) as well as in academia (e.g., Hamermesh & Parker, 2005), where attractive university professors are perceived to offer better lectures. 2 Moreover, individuals' physical appearance may also influence the investment decisions of investors in hedge funds (Pareek & Zuckerman, 2011). ...
Despite an extensive body of research indicating multifaceted advantages for employees deemed physically attractive, factors that limit or even negate the attractiveness premium have not been sufficiently investigated. In this paper, we are particularly interested in whether a rich set of physical appearance factors matter when performance information is transparently available, rather than – as is mostly the case in the labor force – imperfect or costly to obtain. To this end, we explore the labor market of professional football players in one of the world’s most prestigious football leagues, namely the German Bundesliga. We investigate whether a rich set of physical appearance factors (including facial symmetry, facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), body gestalt, and ethnic markers) matter in the players’ chance of being nominated or receiving the prestigious award of Player of the Month. This study offers a unique opportunity to explore selection heuristics among team captains who are responsible for the nomination of the players, and the public who votes on the three top selections by captains. Our results indicate that individual and team performance tend to be a stronger driver of award success than physical appearance. Interestingly, performance can moderate some physical appearance factors and some positive assortative effects between captains and players along physical appearance is observed (captains with higher fWHR scores are more likely to nominate players who also have higher fWHR scores). In general, heuristics for captains are easier to identify empirically than for the public. We also find some differences; for example, only the public demonstrates a bias towards domestic players.
... Previous studies find that attractive candidates are more often and sooner contacted for job interviews and are more likely to gain employment and receive higher ratings (Barrick, Shaffer, & DeGrassi, 2009;Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991), especially if they are male (L opez B oo, Rossi, & Urzua, 2013;Ruffle & Shtudiner, 2015). ...
We apply insights from research insocial psychology and labor economics to the domain ofentrepreneurial finance and investigate how founder chiefexecutive officers' (founder CEOs') facial attractivenessinfluences firm valuation. Leveraging the novel context ofinitial coin offerings (ICOs), we document a pronouncedfounder CEO beauty premium, with a positive relationshipbetween founder CEO attractiveness and firm valuation.We find only very limited evidence of stereotype-basedevaluations, through the association of founder CEO attrac-tiveness with latent traits such as competence, intelligence,likeability, or trustworthiness. Rather, attractiveness seemsto bear economic value per se, especially in a context inwhich investors base their decisions on a limited informa-tion set. Indeed, attractiveness has a sustainable effect onpost-ICO performance.
... Previous studies find that attractive candidates are more often and sooner contacted for job interviews and are more likely to gain employment and receive higher ratings (Barrick, Shaffer, & DeGrassi, 2009;Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991), especially if they are male (L opez B oo, Rossi, & Urzua, 2013;Ruffle & Shtudiner, 2015). ...
Research summary
We apply insights from research in social psychology and labor economics to the domain of entrepreneurial finance and investigate how founder chief executive officers’ (founder CEOs’) facial attractiveness influences firm valuation. Leveraging the novel context of initial coin offerings (ICOs), we document a pronounced founder CEO beauty premium, with a positive relationship between founder CEO attractiveness and firm valuation. We find only very limited evidence of stereotype-based evaluations, through the association of founder CEO attractiveness with latent traits such as competence, intelligence, likeability, or trustworthiness. Rather, attractiveness seems to bear economic value per se, especially in a context in which investors base their decisions on a limited information set. Indeed, attractiveness has a sustainable effect on post-ICO performance.
Managerial summary
ICOs allow ventures to collect funding from investors using blockchain technology. We leverage this novel funding context, in which information on the ventures and their future prospects is scarce, to empirically investigate whether the founder CEOs’ physical attractiveness is associated with increased funding (i.e. amount raised) and post-funding performance (i.e. buy-and-hold returns). We find that ventures with more attractive founder CEOs outperform ventures with less attractive CEOs in both dimensions. For ICO investors, this suggests that ICOs of firms with more attractive founder CEOs are more appealing investment targets. Our findings are also interesting for startups seeking external finance in uncertain contexts, such as ICOs. If startups can appoint attractive leaders, they may have better access to growth capital.
... Physically attractive individuals are considered to have good personality traits (Langlois et al., 2000) and high social skills and abilities (Eagly et al., 1991). They have a higher chance of getting hired Mobius & Rosenblat (2006), receiving greater pay (Bóo, Rossi, & Urzúa, 2013;Hamermesh & Biddle, 1994), and living better (Dion et al., 1972). However, what is beautiful is not always good. ...
Physical attractiveness, an important factor in tourism service encounter, has received increased attention recently. However, less attention has been devoted to its effects on tourism service recovery. The current research fills this gap by systematically examining whether, how, and when a recovery employee’s physical attractiveness affects tourists’ attitudes toward the recovery employee and the firm. Three experiments are carried out. Results show that a recovery employee’s physical attractiveness can positively improve tourists’ attitudes toward the recovery employee and the firm, and this effect works by decreasing tourists’ social distance perceptions. Moreover, the effect of recovery employee’s physical attractiveness is conditioned on gender congruence between the tourist and the recovery employee as well as the severity of service failure. This paper contributes at explaining the mechanism and mixed results of physical attractiveness in tourism service recovery. The managers can benefit from the findings for effectively managing employees’ physical presentation in service recovery.
... We calculated the differences in the makeup and non-makeup conditions in terms of facial attractiveness and employed an item analysis to calculate the Pearson product-moment correlation between the differences and the proportion of participants who selected faces with high attractiveness (r = 0.668, p = 0.023). This finding confirmed the common phenomenon that attractive individuals have more opportunity in job applications and interview processes 51,52 . ...
Makeup is widely used in modern society and has a positive effect on perceived attractiveness. However, little is known about the other possible outcomes of makeup use. In this study, we investigated whether makeup enhances a receiver’s emotional experience. Dynamic faces with or without makeup are presented in Experiments 1 and 2. Participants were asked to imagine themselves video chatting with a target person (expresser) with different expressions: neutral, angry, sad, or happy, and then to appraise their own subjective emotional experience. Emotional valence, arousal, and willingness to communicate were also assessed in Experiment 2. The results showed that makeup improved perceived facial attractiveness and increased the willingness to communicate. More importantly, it revealed that wearing makeup could weaken receivers’ negative experiences arising from the angry and sad conditions, which is not the case for the non-makeup condition, but could not affect the happy contagion. Furthermore, incremental changes in the amount of makeup were not accompanied by incremental changes in emotional appraisal (valence and arousal). Overall, we found that makeup may affect emotional contagion and interpersonal communication. Whether the alleviated negative experience due to makeup is adaptive may need further discussion.
... It is likely that skin color inequalities can also be found in politics, both in the process of becoming a candidate and also in electoral outcomes. If physical appearance matters for employability and earnings (Arceo-Gomez and Campos-Vazquez, 2014;Boo, Rossi, and Urzua, 2013;Busetta, Fiorillo, and Visalli, 2013;Hamermesh, 2011;Parett, 2015), it would not be surprising that physical characteristics such as skin tone also have an effect on success in election to public office, a job involving a large amount of social exposure (Janusz, 2018;Little et al., 2007;Todorov et al., 2005;Weaver, 2012). A candidate's appearance may be especially important for uninformed voters, where the cost of informing oneself is very high (Martinelli, 2006;Matsusaka, 2005). ...
Objective
Evidence suggests that voters’ prejudices may lead them to take information shortcuts in choosing political leaders. This study analyzes whether the skin tone of 12,798 candidates influenced the outcome of their electoral campaigns.
Methods
To determine the probability of winning an election, we estimate a linear regression where skin tone is used as an explanatory variable, with controls such as sex and political party. Based on the number of votes obtained by each candidate, we estimate an ordered logit model.
Results
Candidates with dark brown skin tones face a probability of winning that is 20–38 percent less than those with intermediate skin color. A one standard deviation increase in skin tone is associated with an 8 percent decrease in the probability of finishing in first place.
Conclusion
Skin color influences electoral outcomes. Public policies should therefore ensure equal access and true representativeness.
... If pictures have been utilized, this was done in countries where they are a common component 8 of applications. The goal of such studies usually was to measure the effect of physical attractiveness on employment chances (e.g., López Bóo et al., 2013;Ruffle and Shtudiner, forthcoming;Rooth, 2009). Hardly have pictures been employed to convey characteristics of a job candidate apart from beauty. ...
This paper experimentally examines the employment opportunities of Austrians with and without migration background who apply to job openings. Previous experiments have indicated ethnicity via the name of an applicant, however employers may not always correctly perceive this signal. This study uses a novel approach to signal ethnic background and employs carefully matched photos as distinct visual cues. While results document employment discrimination for all groups with migration background, it is most pronounced for applicants with an African background. To explain why and when discrimination occurs, a battery of firm and job specific characteristics are examined. These, however, help little to explain the level of employment discrimination in Austria.
... Since the seminal paper by Hamermesch and Biddle (1994), research in labor economics has documented the existence of a positive relationship between individual attractiveness and labor market success, which is generally labeled the "beauty premium." Experimental studies find that attractive candidates are more often and sooner contacted for job interviews than other candidates, especially if they are male (e.g., López Bóo et al., 2013;Ruffle and Shtudiner, 2015). ...
We apply insights from research in social psychology and labor economics to the domain of entrepreneurial finance and investigate how founder chief executive officers’ (founder CEOs’) facial attractiveness influences firm valuation. Leveraging the novel context of initial coin offerings (ICOs), we document a pronounced founder CEO beauty premium, with a positive relationship between founder CEO attractiveness and firm valuation. We find only very limited evidence of stereotype-based evaluations, through the association of founder CEO attractiveness with latent traits such as competence, intelligence, likeability, or trustworthiness. Rather, attractiveness seems to bear economic value per se, especially in a context in which investors base their decisions on a limited information set. Indeed, attractiveness has a sustainable effect on post- ICO performance.
... 45 For example, a referee shared that there is anecdotal evidence that some Native Americans have experienced discrimination at the interview stage depending on their skin colour or how "white" they appear or seem. 46 The studies with more job applications than us are: Neumark, Burn, & Button (2019); Agan & Starr (2018); López Bóo, Rossi, & Urzúa (2013);Maurer-Fazio (2012);Maurer-Fazio & Lei (2015); and Zhou, Zhang, & Song (2013). ...
We conducted an audit study - a resume correspondence experiment - to measure discrimination in hiring faced by Indigenous Peoples in the United States (Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians). We sent employers 13,516 realistic resumes of Indigenous or white applications for common jobs in 11 cities. We signalled Indigenous status in one of four different ways. Interview offer rates do not differ by race, which holds after an extensive battery of robustness checks. We discuss multiple concerns such as the saliency of signals, selection of cities and occupations, and labour market tightness that could affect the results of our audit study and those of others. We also conduct decompositions of wages, unemployment rates, unemployment durations, and employment durations to explore if discrimination might exist in contexts outside our experiment. We conclude by highlighting the essential tests and considerations that are important for future audit studies, regardless of if they find discrimination or not.
... 45 For example, a referee shared that there is anecdotal evidence that some Native Americans have experienced discrimination at the interview stage depending on their skin colour or how "white" they appear or seem. 46 The studies with more job applications than us are: Neumark, Burn, & Button (2019); Agan & Starr (2018); López Bóo, Rossi, & Urzúa (2013);Maurer-Fazio (2012);Maurer-Fazio & Lei (2015); and Zhou, Zhang, & Song (2013). ...
We conducted an audit study-a resume correspondence experiment-to measure discrimination in hiring faced by Indigenous Peoples in the United States (Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians). We sent employers 13,516 realistic resumes of Indigenous or white applications for common jobs in 11 cities. We signalled Indigenous status in one of four different ways. Interview offer rates do not differ by race, which holds after an extensive battery of robustness checks. We discuss multiple concerns such as the saliency of signals, selection of cities and occupations, and labour market tightness that could affect the results of our audit study and those of others. We also conduct decompositions of wages, unemployment rates, unemployment durations, and employment durations to explore if discrimination might exist in contexts outside our experiment. We conclude by highlighting the essential tests and considerations that are important for future audit studies, regardless of if they find discrimination or not. JEL Codes: J15, J7, C93
... The face plays an important role in decision-making processes in various contexts, including politics (e.g., Todorov et al. 2005), law and justice (e.g., Zebrowitz and McDonald 1991), leadership (e.g., Rule and Ambady 2008), the labor market (e.g., Bóo, Rossi, and Urzúa 2013;Ruffle and Shtudiner 2014), and marketing (e.g., DeShields, Kara, and Kaynak 1996;Kahle and Homer 1985;Keh et al. 2013;Valentine et al. 2014;Xiao and Ding 2014). In the social networking era, the amount of facial information available online has increased dramatically. ...
Consumers and marketers use facial information to make important inferences about others in many business contexts. However, consumers and firms are increasingly concerned about privacy and discrimination. To address privacy–perception trade-offs, the authors propose a novel contour-as-face (CaF) framework that transforms face images into contour images incorporating both the nonoutline and outline features of facial parts. In three empirical studies, the authors (1) compare human perceptions of face and contour images along 15 dimensions commonly assessed in marketing contexts; (2) investigate the effectiveness of contour images for protecting anonymity related to identity, age, and gender; and (3) implement the CaF framework in a real-life online dating context. Results show that the CaF framework effectively resolves privacy–perception trade-off problems by preserving the information that is useful for humans to make inferences about many relevant perceptual dimensions in marketing while making it virtually impossible for humans to infer identity and very difficult to infer age and gender accurately—two critical discrimination factors. Results from the field implementation demonstrate the feasibility and value of using the CaF framework for real-life decision making.
... Such studies with employers can decrease the effects of these confounders through random assignment of beauty to the characteristics associated with beauty, e.g., intelligence, which is signaled by education in the CVs. Confirming prior empirical findings of a beauty premium, a CV correspondence study in Argentina finds that distorted photos of real people designed to make them ugly were much less likely to obtain a callback López et al. (2013). With the exception of the pronounced premium for better-looking women in office support, receptionist, and customer service jobs, the authors ascertained roughly the same positive premium for both genders across jobs, irrespective of the degree of customer contact. ...
Beautiful people earn more. Surprisingly, this premium is larger for men than for women and is independent of the degree of customer contact. Overlooked is the possibility that beauty can influence college admissions. We explore this potential academic contributor to the labor market beauty earnings premium by sampling 1,800 social media profiles of alumni from universities ranked from 1 to 200 in China and the US. Chinese universities use only standardized test scores for admissions. In contrast, US universities use also grades and extracurricular activities, which are not necessarily beauty-blind. Consistent with beauty-blind admissions, alumni’s beauty is uncorrelated with the rank of college attended in China. In the US, White men from higher ranked colleges are better-looking. As expected, the correlation is insignificant for White men who attended tech colleges and is highest for those who attended private colleges. We also find that White women and minorities of either gender are not better-looking at higher ranked colleges. Our evidence suggests a college admissions contribution to the labor market beauty premium for US White men, but not for alumni in China of either gender, White women, or minorities of either gender in the US, or for White men who attended technical colleges. We discuss how a college admissions preference for athletes can explain our findings.
... The issues of attractiveness and self-perception have been extensively studied in the fields of psychology, anthropology and even socioeconomics. It is well known that attractive people have an advantage in social life or shape their social networks much more easily (Fletcher 2009;Lemay et al. 2010;Benzeval et al. 2013;B oo et al. 2013;O'Connor and Gladstone 2017;Cai et al. 2018). In addition to this, attractive people have better chances of being invited for job interviews and are more likely to take part in mass media shows compared to their less attractive peers (B oo et al. 2013). ...
Background: Facial anthropometric measurements in relation to self-esteem and self-perception have become a very popular topic, not only in anthropological and psychological research, but also in plastic reconstructive surgery.
Aim: To compare the interrelations between facial perception, self-esteem and psychosocial well-being in patients after nasal surgery due to trauma, cancer and aesthetic needs.
Subjects and methods: In total, ninety patients after nasal surgery (due to trauma, cancer and aesthetic reasons), and thirty control persons underwent facial anthropometry and answered questions related to facial perception (FP), self-esteem (SE) and psychosocial well-being (PW). Cluster analysis was performed.
Results: Facial measurements were not related to the perception of the whole face in all investigated persons. The whole face and nasal perception were interrelated in the majority of male groups and in the control female group. SE in females from the control and cancer groups was not related to real facial parameters or FP, however, in females after aesthetic surgery it was related to nasal tip protrusion. SE in females after nasal surgery due to trauma was strongly related to FP. SE in almost all groups of males was related to real facial parameters, and in males after aesthetic surgery it was related to FP. PW was mostly linked to SE in males and females after aesthetic surgery, in other groups it was related to FP.
Conclusions: FP was most frequently not related to real facial measurements; however, it was related to PW. Patients after aesthetic nasal surgery had specific relations between FP, SE and PW.
... The beauty premium has been described as "pure employer discrimination" (Hamermesh and Biddle, 1994). It occurs with high school graduates (Fletcher, 2009) and can be based on no more than a photo (Bóo et al., 2013). The willingness of employers to pay more for attractive workers can be explained to some extent by the success of beautiful people with clients (Biddle and Hamermesh, 1998;Pfann et al., 2000), but it occurs across all sectors (Hamermesh and Biddle, 1994). ...
Economic rents have long been identified as an efficient tax base. In addition, the recent literature documents that rent income is highly concentrated and that rents are quickly increasing. Rent taxation thus seems attractive for reasons of both efficiency and equity. Nevertheless, rent taxation remains a marginal topic in research and policy making. In a systematic review of the neoclassical literature on different rent types, we find that some types of rents reflect inefficiencies and should thus be minimized, while others reward investments and should be supported in line with social welfare. What remains for taxation are land rents, one of the few true scarcity rents. Land rents have significant potential to improve the efficiency of the tax system. We then begin to develop a comprehensive theory of land rent taxation by identifying relevant efficiency and equity effects. The interaction of many of these effects remains unexplored, which might explain policymakers' hesitation in using land taxes to date.
... criptive characteristic generating earnings differentials and causing sectoral sorting, which allow us to distinguish among sources producing such differentials. Beautiful people are seen to be more competent, are perceived more favorably by potential employers, are more likely to be hired and are more likely to receive higher wages and promotions (Bóo et al . 2013, Hamermesh and Biddle 1993, Harper 2000. Physical appearance has a substantial effect on employment patterns and earnings. Men and women assessed as unattractive or short experience a significant earnings penalty. Tall men receive a pay premium, while obese women experience a pay penalty (Harper, 2000). There is evidence of labor market ...
Inspired by the concept of erotic capital, we claim that candidates’ and employees’ erotic capital is one of the factors that may influence on the decisions related to human resources management. Hakim’s concept is however criticized for being too extensive, too incoherent and lacking empirical studies to support it. Therefore, we have conducted empirical studies. They aimed at validating the construct of erotic capital in the context of its role in the assessment of another person, assessment that is intrinsic to HR decision-making. An additional goal was to develop a tool (questionnaire) for estimating the impact of the candidate's/employee's erotic capital on decisions being made concerning recruitment and appraisal in the organization.
Research was split into 3 stages. Stage one consisted of studying the literature. At the second stage, we proceeded with the assessment of content and face validity of the research tool. Within the third stage of the research, the construct was subject to theoretical validity check. Validation proved that the obtained model of erotic capital fulfilled the requirements of: reliability, validity (divergent and predictive) and unidimensionality.
Discrimination remains a key challenge for social equity. There is widespread agreement that discrimination is unfair and should be punished. A prerequisite for this is that instances of discrimination are detected. Yet, some types of discrimination may be less apparent than others. Across seven studies (N = 3,486, five preregistered), we find that attractiveness discrimination often goes undetected compared to more prototypical types of discrimination (i.e., gender and race discrimination). This blind spot does not emerge because people perceive attractiveness discrimination to be unproblematic or desirable. Rather, our findings suggest that people’s ability to detect discrimination is bounded. People only focus on a few salient dimensions, such as gender and race, when scrutinizing decision outcomes (e.g., hiring or sentencing decisions) for bias. Consistent with this account, two interventions that increased the salience of attractiveness increased the detection of attractiveness discrimination, but also decreased the detection of gender and race discrimination.
Der Band befasst sich mit der ganzen Bandbreite an fachlich diversen Themen und gibt einen Überblick über den empirischen Forschungsstand aus der Perspektive der verschiedenen Fachdisziplinen. Das Bestreben hierbei ist es, zum einen eine möglichst breite (wissenschaftliche) Öffentlichkeit zu erreichen und das Bewusstsein für ein Thema zu erhöhen, welches im Alltag große Wirkungsmacht entfalten kann. Dabei handelt es sich bei physischer Attraktivität um einen häufig unterschätzen Faktor des Sozialen. Das Buch schließt die wissenschaftliche Lücke bezüglich der systematischen Aufarbeitung der quantitativ empirischen Forschung zur Wirkung physischer Attraktivität, damit es einen – für die wissenschaftliche Öffentlichkeit zugänglichen – „Grundkanon“ der bestehenden Forschung gibt, der Andere zur Replikation und zum kritischen Diskurs anhalten soll.
The book covers a wide range of topics and provides an overview of the empirical state of research from the perspective of different disciplines. The aim is to reach a broad (scientific) audience on the one hand, and on the other to raise awareness of a topic that can have a significant impact on everyday life. Physical attractiveness is an often underestimated social factor. The book closes the scientific gap of a systematic treatment of quantitative empirical research on the effects of physical attractiveness, so that a "basic canon" of existing research is available - accessible to the scientific public - which should stimulate others to replicate and to engage in critical discourse.
Dieser Beitrag untersucht, welchen Einfluss physische Attraktivität auf die Notenvergabe im Schulkontext und bei Personalauswahlentscheidungen hat. Es wird gezeigt, dass Attraktivität direkt und indirekt einen Einfluss auf die Erwerbsbiografie nehmen kann. Erstens sind die zentralen Wirkmechanismen von Attraktivität direkt in den einzelnen Prozessstufen des Bewerbungsverfahrens mit Bewerbungsfotos wirksam. Zweitens erstreckt sich der Einfluss von Attraktivität über die gesamte Lebensphase und beginnt schon vor dem Start der Erwerbsbiografie bereits in der Phase des Erwerbs von Bildungszertifikaten. Attraktive Personen erhalten als Kinder mehr Aufmerksamkeit und Unterstützung und können die daraus entstehenden Wettbewerbsvorteile beim Eintritt in den Arbeitsmarkt für ihre Karriere nutzen. Attraktive Personen haben monetäre Vorteile auf dem Arbeitsmarkt und unattraktive monetäre Nachteile von teilweise erheblichem Ausmaß. Physische Attraktivität kann daher, bezogen auf die Erwerbsbiografie, auch einen Faktor in der Produktion sozialer Ungleichheit darstellen.
Die Wettbewerbsvorteile attraktiver Menschen in den unterschiedlichsten Lebensbereichen sind über fünf grundlegende Mechanismen vermittelt: Den Attractiveness Consensus, den Attractiveness Attention Boost, den Attractiveness Stereotype, den Attractiveness Glamour Effect und den Attractiveness Treatment Advantage. Diese Mechanismen werden im Beitrag vorgestellt und diskutiert. Darüber hinaus werden außerdem Handlungssituationen und -kontexte besprochen, in denen sich die positiven Wirkungen physischer Attraktivität nicht voll entfalten können und sich teilweise sogar in ihr Gegenteil verkehren. Es handelt sich dabei um den Attractiveness Frog Pond Effect, die Beauty Penalty, das Ugliness Premium und den Beauty is Beastly Effect. Der Beitrag schließt mit einigen grundsätzlichen normativen und politischen Betrachtungen zum Attractiveness Competition Advantage
This research investigates labor market discrimination based on physical appearance in Israel’s Certified Public Accountant firms. Using a survey questionnaire, we showed that accountants in managerial positions prefer to hire more physically attractive candidates. This beauty premium is larger among the five biggest Certified Public Accountant firms and can be explained by the perception that attractive candidates possess essential traits for becoming successful accountants. An important implication of our results is that even among accounting firms, where professionalism is well defined, discrimination against candidates based on traits such as physical appearance can ineffectively eliminate suitably qualified interns.
Mechanism design has emerged as relevant field for information systems management. Specifically, for two-sided markets, design choices have significant effects on user behavior and thus on how supply and demand are matched. On sharing economy platforms, not only actors from the demand side, but also from the supply side must trust their respective counterparts for any transaction to be realized. With this paper, we shed light on the effects of consumer self-disclosure by means of a field experiment on Airbnb (n=400). Specifically, we investigate how the availability of profile photos and/or self-descriptions affects the chances of their booking requests being accepted. In view of recent anti-discrimination initiatives pushing back profile photos, we consider the compensatory and complementary roles of textual self-descriptions for creating trust. Findings suggest that, while not as powerful as photos, self-descriptions can partially compensate the trust loss induced by the renunciation of photos. Our findings have immediate implications for the design and operation of sharing economy platforms.
In the two decades between Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General and Oral Health in America: Advances and Challenges much good happened but intractable challenges persist. Inequity in oral health status, utilization, and access to care continue to negatively affect the health and economic wellbeing of Americans and their families, local, state, and federal health care systems, and American society overall. To move the nation forward, we argue that: more emphasis is needed in prevention; access to care must be improved to mitigate inequity; newer understandings of oral disease must be leveraged in the service of health and health care; the value that oral health brings to economic wellbeing must be elucidated; better policy choices must be made in all of the above; and more effective oral health care leaders in driving policy change must be trained.
We investigate the contribution of college admissions to the labor market beauty premium. We sampled 1800 social media profiles of students from universities ranked from 1 to 200 in China and the US. Chinese universities use standardized test scores for admissions. US universities use also extracurricular activities. Consistent with beauty‐blind admissions, alumni's beauty is uncorrelated with the rank of the school they attended in China. In the US, White men who attended high‐ranked schools are better looking, especially attendees of private schools. A one percentage point increase in beauty rank corresponds to a half‐point increase in the school rank.
Notwithstanding the improved integration of various minority groups in the workforce, unequal treatment in hiring still hinders many individuals' access to the labour market. To tackle this inaccessibility, it is essential to know which and to what extent minority groups face hiring discrimination. This meta-analysis synthesises a quasi-exhaustive register of correspondence experiments on hiring discrimination published between 2005 and 2020. Using a random-effects model, we computed pooled discrimination ratios concerning ten discrimination grounds upon which unequal treatment in hiring is forbidden under United States federal or state law. Our meta-analysis shows that hiring discrimination against candidates with disabilities, older candidates, and less physically attractive candidates is at least equally severe as the unequal treatment of candidates with salient ethnic characteristics. Remarkably, hiring discrimination against older applicants is even more outspoken in Europe than in the United States. Furthermore, unequal treatment in hiring based on sexual orientation seems to be prompted mainly by signalling activism rather than same-sex orientation in itself. Last, aside from a significant decrease in ethnic hiring discrimination in Europe, we find no structural evidence of recent temporal changes in hiring discrimination based on the various other grounds within the scope of this review.
Lookism issues have been studied in the fields of economics, social science, physiology, and business. Studies have shown that physical appearance affects employers' judgment about the quality of an employee. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the effects of lookism on career development in organizations. In addition, this chapter discusses the strategies for reducing lookism in the workplace from a human resource development perspective and provides four strategies for reducing lookism. First, legislation should include and address issues of physical attractiveness. Second, diversity education and training should be provided to students, employees, and employers. Third, diversity management should be practiced in the workplace. Fourth, appropriate employment processes should be adopted. Future research should study lookism over a wider range of occupations across different cultures. In addition, future studies should develop theories and conceptual frameworks to support and explain current issues of lookism in the workplace.
Purpose
Pulchronomics studies the economics of beauty. The purpose of this paper is to research CEO pulchronomics by examining whether a beauty premium exists in CEO compensation and whether this beauty premium is justified by differences in CEO performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors calculate a facial attractiveness scores (FAS) based on facial symmetry, facial structure and the golden ratio. The authors then perform OLS regressions to examine the effect of CEO beauty on CEO compensation and firm performances.
Findings
The authors find that base salaries for attractive CEOs are higher than those for unattractive CEOs, but incentive pays for attractive CEOs are not different from those for unattractive CEOs. The latter is likely due to the fact that attractive CEOs do not outperform unattractive CEOs in operations, innovation, corporate social responsibility and financial reporting quality.
Originality/value
Since the CEO beauty premium is not supported by the superior performance of attractive CEOs, this paper provides new evidence of appearance discrimination in CEO compensation.
Lookism issues have been studied in the fields of economics, social science, physiology, and business. Studies have shown that physical appearance affects employers' judgment about the quality of an employee. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the effects of lookism on career development in organizations. In addition, this chapter discusses the strategies for reducing lookism in the workplace from a human resource development perspective and provides four strategies for reducing lookism. First, legislation should include and address issues of physical attractiveness. Second, diversity education and training should be provided to students, employees, and employers. Third, diversity management should be practiced in the workplace. Fourth, appropriate employment processes should be adopted. Future research should study lookism over a wider range of occupations across different cultures. In addition, future studies should develop theories and conceptual frameworks to support and explain current issues of lookism in the workplace.
This paper analyses how both own appearance and the beauty composition of other candidates influence the chances of being selected for a job interview. Based on our lab experiment with randomised CVs, we confirm the role of appearance on job recruitment. Importantly, we show that appearance of other applicants with the same gender has significant incremental effects on top of the existing beauty premium. This “wingman effect” is more pronounced in high skilled occupations and mainly among male recruiters. We provide evidence that the “wingman effect” is not driven by system one decision making and predominantly affects choices at the margin.
While the existence of a beauty premium is documented for many labour markets, there has been no study on the association of attractiveness with fringe benefits. This is a significant limitation of the extant literature, since fringe benefits are increasingly acknowledged as an integral part of the employees’ compensation, and a main indicator of job quality. Using the Canadian General Social Survey of 2016, the present paper examines how a self-rated measure of attractiveness associates with both labour earnings and fringe benefits. Employing a rich set of controls, no evidence for a beauty premium is found for men, while there is some evidence for a beauty penalty for women. However, attractiveness is found to positively predict the number of fringe benefits of both men and women. Therefore, at equal level of earnings, more attractive individuals appear able to secure higher quality jobs, as measured by the number of fringe benefits. The results, hence, suggest that the effects of attractiveness on labour market outcomes cannot be fully captured by a separate examination of earnings and the hiring process.
The authors examine the impact of ethnic bias based on public employment officers’ decisions when choosing whom to recommend for participation in a labor market program. On the basis of an experiment that uses job seekers’ own portrait photographs, their recorded voices, and their real names, findings show that when recommending job seekers for labor market programs, female caseworkers are not affected by job seekers’ appearance, but male caseworkers favor job seekers who are perceived to have a stereotypical Swedish appearance. Moreover, the authors find that, as intended by the guidelines of the Swedish Public Employment Service, both male and female caseworkers favor job seekers perceived, based on the job seekers’ recorded voice, to have a foreign background. The authors’ conclusions suggest that when no explicit guidelines are provided for addressing the impact of ethnic stereotypes on selection for training programs, a risk of bias based on ethnic stereotypes of physical appearance exists.
This article addresses the question of appearance-based effects by looking at the U.S. House of Representatives election 2016. We broaden the focus beyond existing studies by offering a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the three traits attractiveness, competence, and likability while simultaneously taking into account confounding third variables and possible interactions. Corresponding to the comparative character of electoral competition in the districts, we developed a relative measure of the three traits which we apply in an online survey. This measure also takes into account the raters' latency times, that is, their clicking speed, as a weighting factor for their ambiguity in the ratings. With these data we test whether appearance matters for the electoral outcome. We find that attractiveness positively affects the vote share, whereas perceived likability and competence play no role. The study also tests to what extent the found appearance effects are conditioned by incumbency status, age, and gender of the contestants. Furthermore, it gives hints which aspects of their appearance candidates could change to perform better at the ballot box.
We study whether sell-side financial analysts’ physical attractiveness is associated with their job performance. We find that attractive analysts make more accurate earnings forecasts than less attractive analysts. Moreover, more attractive analysts make stock recommendations that are more informative in the short run and more profitable in the long run. Additional analyses reveal that attractive analysts attain their better job performance at least partly through their privileged access to information from firm management. For the sources of the beauty effect, we find that more attractive analysts gain more media exposure, have better connections to institutional investors, and receive more internal support from their employers. Additional evidence suggests that analysts’ physical appearance per se at least partly explains our findings. Overall, our study shows that physical attractiveness has a profound impact on the job performance and information access of sell-side financial analysts.
This paper was accepted by Shiva Rajgopal, accounting.
Robert Bruce, king of Scots, is a significant figure in Scottish history, and his facial appearance will have been key to his status, power and resilience as a leader. This paper is the first in a series that discusses the burial and skeletal remains excavated at Dunfermline in 1819. Parts II and III discuss the evidence relating to whether or not the burial vault and skeleton belong to Robert Bruce, and Part I analyses and interprets the historical records and skeletal structure in order to produce a depiction of the facial appearance of Robert Bruce.
Physical attractiveness and its relation to the theory of sexual selection deserve renewed attention from cultural and biological anthropologists. This paper focuses on an anomaly associated with physical attractiveness-in our species, in contrast to many others, males seem to be more concerned than females with the attractiveness of potential sexual partners, perhaps because humans show far more age-related variance in female than in male fecundity. The resulting selection for male attraction to markers of female youth may lead incidentally to attraction to females displaying age-related cues in an exaggerated form. This paper reports cross-cultural evidence that males in five populations (Brazilians, U.S. Americans, Russians, Ache, and Hiwi) show an attraction to females with neotenous facial proportions (a combination of large eyes, small noses, and full lips) even after female age is controlled for. Two further studies show that female models have neotenous cephalofacial proportions relative to U.S. undergraduates and that drawings of faces artificially transformed to make them more or less neotenous are perceived as correspondingly more or less attractive. These results suggest several further lines of investigation, including the relationship between facial and bodily cues and the consequences of attraction to neoteny for morphological evolution.
This research examines one mechanism by which people decide whether to trust strangers. Using a laboratory setting that provides subjects with controlled information about their counterparts, we test whether attractive subjects gain a “beauty premium” in a game involving trust and reciprocity. Attractive trustees are viewed as more trustworthy; they are trusted at higher rates and as a consequence earn more in the first stage of the game. Attractiveness does not guarantee higher earnings, as we find a “beauty penalty” attached to attractive trusters in the second stage of the game. This penalty arises because attractive trusters do not live up to expectations of them on the part of the trustees. Trustees withhold repayment when their expectations are dashed. This punishment is larger when the disappointing truster is attractive.
We investigate the role of physical attractiveness in the hiring process. We sent 5,312 curricula vitae (CVs) in pairs to 2,656 advertised job openings. In each pair, one CV was without a picture, whereas the second, otherwise almost identical CV contained a picture of either an attractive male or female or a plain-looking male or female. Employer callbacks to attractive men are significantly higher than to men with no picture and to plain-looking men, nearly doubling the latter group. Strikingly, attractive women do not enjoy the same beauty premium. In fact, women with no picture have a significantly higher rate of callback than attractive or plain-looking women. We explore a number of explanations for this discrimination against attractive women and provide evidence that female jealousy and envy are likely reasons.
This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.
The existence of a beauty premium in the labor market and the male–female wage gap suggests that appearance can matter in the real world. We explore beauty and gender in a public goods experiment and find similar effects. We find a beauty premium, even though beautiful people contribute, on average, no more or less than others. The beauty premium, however, disappears when we provide information on individual contributions, and becomes a beauty penalty. Players seem to expect beautiful people to be more cooperative. Relative to these expectations, they appear more selfish, which in turn results in less cooperation by others. These appear to be clear examples of stereotyping. We also find a substantial benefit to being male, especially with information. This is primarily due to men being better “leaders.” Men tend to make large contributions, and people follow their example and give more in later rounds.
Using data on user attributes and interactions from an online dating site, we estimate mate preferences, and use the Gale-Shapley algorithm to predict stable matches. The predicted matches are similar to the actual matches achieved by the dating site, and the actual matches are approximately efficient. Out-of- sample predictions of offline matches, i.e., marriages, exhibit assortative mating patterns similar to those observed in actual marriages. Thus, mate preferences, without resort to search frictions, can generate sorting in marriages. However, we underpredict some of the correlation patterns; search frictions may play a role in explaining the discrepancy. (JEL C78, J12)
In four experiments, we tested the existence of an ideal facial feature arrangement that could optimize the attractiveness of any face given its facial features. Participants made paired comparisons of attractiveness between faces with identical facial features but different eye-mouth distances and different interocular distances. We found that although different faces have varying attractiveness, individual attractiveness is optimized when the face's vertical distance between the eyes and the mouth is approximately 36% of its length, and the horizontal distance between the eyes is approximately 46% of the face's width. These "new" golden ratios match those of an average face.
Body weight has risen in defiance of health and appearance norms. This is framed in terms of the problem of time-inconsistency and self-control. The social epidemics of overeating and slimming were driven by market forces and the psychology of eating: restrained eating was easily disinhibited by the stresses of new rewards. For men, the rise in body weight was associated with the decline of family eating and exposure to greater food variety. For women, the 'cult of slimming' was associated with mating and workplace competition, driven initially by adverse sex ratios. Food abundance made it difficult for rational consumers to conform with social norms.
Experimental evidence on gender differences demonstrates that women are generally less trusting and more reciprocating than men in Investment Games. However, existing studies typically use a narrow population consisting of college students. To test the robustness of these findings, we report on an experiment using 18-84-year old participants recruited from an online panel. While trusting gender differences are robust across age, with women less trusting than men, reciprocating behavior is not robust across age; gender differences in reciprocating behavior depend on age and amounts received in a complex manner. Regarding trusting behavior, we also find that men and women of all ages trust women and older people more than men and younger people. To understand trust better, we collected socio-economic and demographic information and experimentally measured how much subjects expected different partner types would return. While socio-economic and demographic information explain little of the trusting and reciprocating behavior, expectations explain nearly 50 percent of the reason women trust less than men and why more is sent to women and older people. However, even after controlling for expectations, gender and age differences remain significant in explaining trusting behavior.
The authors examine the impact of looks on earnings using interviewers' ratings of respondents' physical appearance. Plain people earn less than average-looking people, who earn less than the good-looking. The plainness penalty is 5 to 10 percent, slightly larger than the beauty premium. Effects for men are at least as great as for women. Unattractive women have lower labor-force participation rates and marry men with less human capital. Better-looking people sort into occupations where beauty may be more productive but the impact of individuals' looks is mostly independent of occupation, suggesting the existence of pure employer discrimination. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
Objective. This article aims to expand research about perceptions of discrimination both substantively and methodologically beyond the domains of race and ethnicity, relying partly on web-based surveys. Methods. We conducted parallel surveys over the telephone and the World-Wide web, using standard random-digit dial (RDD) techniques for the former, and a large volunteer panel for the latter. Results. Both modes, phone and web, revealed that respondents consider discrimination based on physical appearance and economic status to be more prevalent than discrimination based on ethnicity. Respondents also reported that they themselves have been victimized more by physical appearance and economic-status discrimination than by ethnic discrimination. Significant differences emerged between the phone and web respondent pools, even after controlling for such independent variables as age, race, education level, and gender. Conclusions. People perceive discrimination across many aspects of social life, and appear more willing to reveal knowledge about controversial social phenomena on the web than on the phone.
We decompose the beauty premium in an experimental labor market where "employers" determine wages of "workers" who perform a maze-solving task. This task requires a true skill which we show to be unaffected by physical attractiveness. We find a sizable beauty premium and can identify three transmission channels: (a) physically attractive workers are more confident and higher confidence increases wages; (b) for a given level of confidence, physically attractive workers are (wrongly) considered more able by employers; (c) controlling for worker confidence, physically attractive workers have oral skills (such as communication and social skills) that raise their wages when they interact with employers. Our methodology can be adopted to study the sources of discriminatory pay differentials in other settings.
Most of us know there is a payoff to looking good, and in the quest for beauty we spend countless hours and billions of dollars on personal grooming, cosmetics, and plastic surgery. But how much better off are the better looking? Based on the evidence, quite a lot. The first book to seriously measure the advantages of beauty,Beauty Paysdemonstrates how society favors the beautiful and how better-looking people experience startling but undeniable benefits in all aspects of life. Noted economist Daniel Hamermesh shows that the attractive are more likely to be employed, work more productively and profitably, receive more substantial pay, obtain loan approvals, negotiate loans with better terms, and have more handsome and highly educated spouses. Hamermesh explains why this happens and what it means for the beautiful--and the not-so-beautiful--among us. Exploring whether a universal beauty standard exists, Hamermesh illustrates how attractive workers make more money, how these amounts differ by gender, and how looks are valued differently based on profession. The author wonders whether extra pay for good-looking people represents discrimination, and, if so, who is discriminating. He investigates the commodification of beauty in dating and how this influences the search for intelligent or high-earning mates, and even considers whether government programs should aid the ugly. Hamermesh also discusses whether the economic benefits of beauty will persist into the foreseeable future and what the "looks-challenged" can do to overcome their disadvantage. © Daniel S. Hamermesh Princeton University Press. All Rights Reserved.
The relationship of managerial experience to gender and attractiveness biases was examined in decisions involving suitability for hire and probable organizational progression within a typical financial institution. Each of 112 managers evaluated 4 equivalent résumé-data sheets, to which different candidate photographs were attached. The photographs were varied using a 2 X 2 (Gender X Attractiveness) design wherein each photograph depicted a woman or a man who was either highly attractive or slightly below average in attractiveness. For both ratings and rankings of candidates, clear evidence of attractiveness and gender biases were present. The extent of the bias was generally smaller for the most experienced managers, although less attractive female applicants were routinely at a disadvantage regardless of managerial experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Meta-analysis was used to examine findings in 2 related areas: experimental research on the physical attractiveness stereotype and correlational studies of characteristics associated with physical attractiveness. The experimental literature found that physically attractive people were perceived as more sociable, dominant, sexually warm, mentally healthy, intelligent, and socially skilled than physically unattractive people. Yet, the correlational literature indicated generally trivial relationships between physical attractiveness and measures of personality and mental ability, although good-looking people were less lonely, less socially anxious, more popular, more socially skilled, and more sexually experienced than unattractive people. Self-ratings of physical attractiveness were positively correlated with a wider range of attributes than was actual physical attractiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper studies the role played by caste, education and other social and economic attributes in arranged marriages among middle-class Indians. We use a unique data set on individuals who placed matrimonial advertisements in a major newspaper, the responses they received, how they ranked them, and the eventual matches. We estimate the preferences for caste, education, beauty, and other attributes. We then compute a set of stable matches, which we compare to the actual matches that we observe in the data. We find the stable matches to be quite similar to the actual matches, suggesting a relatively frictionless marriage market. One of our key empirical findings is that there is a very strong preference for within-caste marriage. However, because both sides of the market share this preference and because the groups are fairly homogeneous in terms of the distribution of other attributes, in equilibrium, the cost of wanting to marry within-caste is low. This allows caste to remain a persistent feature of the Indian marriage market.
The present study investigated the impact of physical attractiveness and résuméquality on the evaluation of job applicants in the screening phase of the selection process. One hundred and eighty participants were asked to imagine they were a recruiting officer and to screen an application for the position of graduate trainee manager. Participants read a job advertisement and one of two versions of a curriculum vitae, which differed in quality. Attached to the front page of each curriculum vitae was a passport-sized head-and-shoulders photograph of either an average or an attractive female. A control condition with no attached photograph was also included. Participants judged the likelihood with which they would offer an interview to the applicant, the quality of the application, and the likely starting salary they would offer the applicant. Results indicated that attractiveness had no impact when the quality of the application was high but that attractiveness was an advantage when the application was mediocre. When the résumé quality was average the attractive applicant was evaluated more positively than the control, no photograph, applicant; an attractive photograph boosted the evaluation of a mediocre application. Results are discussed in terms of discrimination and implications for the field of human resource management.
This study presents evidence of differential treatment in the hiring of obese individuals in the Swedish labor market. Fictitious applications were sent to real job openings. The applications were sent in pairs, where one facial photo of an otherwise identical applicant was manipulated to show the individual as obese. Applications sent with the weight-manipulated photo had a significantly lower callback response for an interview: Six percentage points lower for men and eight percentage points lower for women. This differential treatment occurs differently for men and women: The results for men are driven by attractiveness, while the results for women are driven by obesity.
To explore the idea that the career opportunities of attractive women are hindered by their appearance an experiment was conducted to determine the effects of both appearance and sex on the evaluations of applicants for managerial and nonmanagerial positions. As predicted, attractiveness consistently proved to be an advantage for men but was an advantage for women only when seeking a nonmanagerial position. This was found to be the case in ratings of qualifications, recommendations for hiring, suggested starting salary, and rankings of hiring preferences. Additional results indicated that attractiveness exaggerated perceptions of gender-related attributes involving work behaviors. Taken together, these data were interpreted as supporting the idea that the effects of appearance are mediated by fluctuations in the perceived fit between applicant attributes and job requirements. The implications of these findings both for organizations and for women who seek to advance their careers are discussed.
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we investigate whether certain aspects of personal appearance (i.e., physical attractiveness, personality, and grooming) affect a student's cumulative grade point average (GPA) in high school. When physical attractiveness is entered into the model as the only measure of personal appearance (as has been done in previous studies), it has a positive and statistically significant impact on GPA for female students and a positive yet not statistically significant effect for male students. Including personality and grooming, the effect of physical attractiveness turns negative for both groups, but is only statistically significant for males. For male and female students, being very well groomed is associated with a statistically significant GPA premium. While grooming has the largest effect on GPA for male students, having a very attractive personality is most important for female students. Numerous sensitivity analyses support the core results for grooming and personality. Possible explanations for these findings include teacher discrimination, differences in student objectives, and rational resource allocation decisions.
This paper examines the wage returns to attractiveness for young high school graduates. Findings show that wage returns to attractiveness are large relative to ability and beauty and ability are complements at high attractiveness ratings but substitutes at low ratings.
Racial discrimination in selection for job interview was measured directly by the experimental technique of "corresponding testing." Carefully-matched pairs of written job applications were sent in response to advertised vacancies in Victoria--a state of Australia. One letter was from an applicant with an Anglo-Celtic name and the other was from an applicant with a Greek or Vietnamese name. Statistically significant discrimination was found against both Vietnamese-named and Greek-named applicants. There was no relationship between the incidence of discrimination and the competitive structure of the employer's product market. Copyright 1991 by Oxford University Press.
Este trabajo investiga el premio de la “belleza” en una muestra de ingenieros comerciales egresados desde 1978 a 1998. Usando un diseño experimental se construyó un índice de belleza por individuo en base a la percepción de un grupo de personas seleccionadas aleatoriamente, quienes calificaron fotos. Los resultados indican que el efecto de la “belleza” está presente sólo en los años iniciales en el mercado laboral, como un “premio” por estar sobre el promedio para las mujeres, llegando a ser del orden del 33%, y como un “castigo” por estar bajo el promedio para los hombres, cercano al 36%. Otro resultado es que el efecto para los hombres se disipa más rápidamente que para las mujeres, a medida que ganan experiencia en el mercado laboral. Por último, aunque la evidencia no es concluyente los resultados indican que el premio a la belleza es mayor en el sector privado y para trabajadores dependientes o empleados.
Sexual discrimination in invitation to job interview was tested by a controlled experimental method of send ing carefully-matched pairs of letters in response to newspaper adver tisements-one from a female and one from a male applicant. On 363 of the occasions, when invitations were issued, the applicants were trea ted equally, but there were 144 occasions of differential treatment. Females encountered discrimination 40 percent more frequently than ma les. Discrimination against females was statistically significant for the data in aggregate and for two of the seven occupations involved- gardener and computer analyst-programmer. Copyright 1987 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd/University of Adelaide and Flinders University of South Australia
We study race in the labor market by sending fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perceived race, resumes are randomly assigned African-American- or White-sounding names. White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Callbacks are also more responsive to resume quality for White names than for African-American ones. The racial gap is uniform across occupation, industry, and employer size. We also find little evidence that employers are inferring social class from the names. Differential treatment by race still appears to still be prominent in the U. S. labor market.
The influence of physical appearance in the labour market is examined using longitudinal cohort data covering 11,407 individual born in Britain in 1958. Results show that physical appearance has a substantial effect on earnings and employment patterns for both men and women. Irrespective of gender, those who are assessed as unattractive or short, experience a significant earnings penalty. Tall men receive a pay premium while obese women experience a pay penalty. The bulk of the pay differential for appearance arises from employer discrimination, although we find evidence for productivity differences among occupations. The impact of physical appearance is also evident in the marriage market. Among women, those who are tall or obese are less likely to be married; while among men, lower marriage rates are found for those who are short or unattractive. Copyright 2000 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Experimental evidence on gender differences demonstrates that women are generally less trusting and more reciprocating than men in Investment Games. However, existing studies typically use a narrow population consisting of college students. To test the robustness of these findings, we report on an experiment using 18-84-year old participants recruited from an online panel. While trusting gender differences are robust across age, with women less trusting than men, reciprocating behavior is not robust across age; gender differences in reciprocating behavior depend on age and amounts received in a complex manner. Regarding trusting behavior, we also find that men and women of all ages trust women and older people more than men and younger people. To understand trust better, we collected socio-economic and demographic information and experimentally measured how much subjects expected different partner types would return. While socio-economic and demographic information explain little of the trusting and reciprocating behavior, expectations explain nearly 50 percent of the reason women trust less than men and why more is sent to women and older people. However, even after controlling for expectations, gender and age differences remain significant in explaining trusting behavior.
Beauty Pays Why Attractive People are more Successful? Princeton University Press (Princeton and Oxford) Harper, Barry. 2000. “Beauty, Stature, and the Labour Market: A British Cohort Study
- Hamermesh
- Daniel
Hamermesh, Daniel. 2011. Beauty Pays. Why Attractive People are more Successful? Princeton University Press (Princeton and Oxford) Harper, Barry. 2000. “Beauty, Stature, and the Labour Market: A British Cohort Study.” Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 62: 771–800
Dimensions of Physical Attractiveness
- H Budge
Budge, H. 1981. "Dimensions of Physical Attractiveness." Unpublished doctoral
dissertation. Salt Lake City: University of Utah.
New Golden Ratios for Facial Beauty
- Pamela Pallet
- Stephen Link
- Kang Lee
Pallet, Pamela, Stephen Link, and Kang Lee. 2010. "New Golden Ratios for Facial
Beauty." Vision Research 50 (2): 149-154.