Even in the developed and liberal world, many prejudices appear in the workplace that explain the non-meritocratic (meritocracy - the principle of “everyone deserves it”) or the unfair advantage that some groups of people have, regardless of their actual talent or potential: sexism, racism and ageism and etc. Nevertheless, the existence of one of the most common and visible prejudices is far from always recognized. It is a bias based on criteria such as beauty. It is also known as Lukism.
Biased attitude
Bias on this criterion in the labor market is even documented. In one of the academic reviews, it was said: “Physically attractive people are more likely to be invited for job and recruitment interviews, they are more likely to quickly move up the career ladder due to frequent job promotions and receive higher salaries than less attractive people". Common manifestations of discrimination in appearance may include bias against obese, strangely dressed, or tattooed workers, or any person who does not meet the dominant aesthetic criteria of society.
Setting standards
In general, biased attitude to appearance is associated with a kind of psychological reward, an advantage that people get when they are considered more attractive, regardless of whether it happens knowingly or unconsciously. And only a few, including employers, actually admit that they prefer to work with people based on a fairly high level of attractiveness. Sometimes these requirements are negotiated directly. For example, to join the Chinese Navy, attractive appearance is an official requirement, and although Abercrombie & Fitch agreed to hire WASPY resellers in the amount of $ 50 million, the company was not prohibited from setting employees to set standards of attractiveness.
Assessment of appearance
Attractiveness bias can be clearly seen, so any employer who is interested in addressing deficiencies in relation to less attractive people can not only detect this deviation, but also evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at eliminating it.
For starters, one can measure attractiveness based on a combination of assessments of the appearance and attractiveness of others. But it must be borne in mind that such assessments are, as a rule, subjective, therefore there are always disagreements between people who evaluate the same person. Imposed cultural stereotypes may also play a role.
Then you can correlate this indicator with a number of success indicators, from the estimates obtained at the interview, to the evaluations of work efficiency, as well as data on promotion and salary. Given that attractiveness is rarely a formal criterion for the preferred choice of a particular person (if it is not a romantic acquaintance), the researchers became interested in the problem of correlating assessments of people's attractiveness with any objective indicator of career success.
Prevalence
There is bias in attractiveness, for example, in education, because studies show that physically attractive students tend to get higher grades at the university, in part because they are considered more conscientious and smart, even if this is not true. In addition, attractiveness helps students to enter the university, primarily by obtaining higher grades during introductory interviews. This is consistent with the well-known halo effect, in which attractive people are usually perceived as more sociable, healthy, successful, honest and talented.
In fact, meta-analytical studies show that even children are considered smarter, more honest and more purposeful when they are more attractive. Children also draw similar conclusions when evaluating more or less attractive adults. During one of the experiments, the researchers asked the children to choose an imaginary boat captain for the game, and they were asked to choose from photographs of real politicians (unknown to 5-year-olds). Most often, they chose a more attractive candidate, and their choice was consistent with the results of past political elections with an accuracy of about 80%.
What does this lead to
It is not surprising that the addiction to beauty is transferred to the workplace. Scientific studies show that less attractive people are more likely to be fired. For example, in a pilot study, researchers sent 11,000 resumes to various vacancies, including identical resumes, accompanied by photographs of candidates of different attractiveness levels. Attractive women and men were much more often invited for interviews than unattractive (or not photographed) candidates.
Scientific research also emphasizes the established relationship between attractiveness and long-term income, when beauty is above average corresponds to a higher (10-15% higher) income. In the US, this "beauty prize" is similar to bias by race or gender. This effect is found even among highly successful people.
Researchers Findings
Of course, the reason for the correlation between beauty and career success is not only associated with prejudice or bias in relation to appearance, actual talent also plays a role. In other words, can it be that at least partially attractive people succeed in life, because they actually have a higher level of intelligence or talent? On the other hand, there is no clear evidence that people who are less successful or talented become victims of stereotypes associated with appearance.
Beauty Factor Effect
Of course, there is still no exact evidence, first queue due to the lack of objective data that are not related to subjective preferences. It should be borne in mind that the effectiveness of most people is measured simply by one subjective assessment provided by their immediate supervisor or boss. If employers do not have objective data to reveal the bias and subjective preferences of managers based on their assessments of employee performance, how can they quantify the exact contribution of employees to the company?
In the same way, it is not always easy to determine whether the appearance should be considered as a bias factor or a characteristic characteristic of the work, especially when the effectiveness of employees depends on the perception of their customers. On the other hand, physical attractiveness, as well as psychological attractiveness, improves sales and fundraising opportunities, so is it reasonable to stop employers from hiring more attractive sellers or fundraisers?
Attitude to the problem
If officially allowed to hire primarily attractive people, the alternative would be discrimination against less attractive workers. It will affect people from minority groups who do not meet the prevailing norms of beauty. But when employers simply pretend to ignore attractiveness, focusing on past successes of candidates or interview results and interpreting these data as objective or impartial, there is no guarantee that less attractive candidates will not be left out.
Obviously, appealingness is considered an unfair advantage. Although employers can mitigate this bias by eliminating appearance data from their hiring practices, for example by focusing on past results and resume data, instead of personal interviews, such measures will not be enough to eliminate bias, since even those that at first glance it seems objective, prejudice could have previously affected. For example, if in the past attractive people were rated more favorably, their resume would have higher ratings and results.