As we all know, being attractive helps, and now research confirms it. It’s called the “beauty bias“, and researchers have found that “good-looking” people are more likely to be hired and promoted than people who aren’t as good-looking.
Researchers have long suspected that people who are more attractive than average earn more money.
A new study cited by Business Insider highlights the role attractiveness plays in how investors behave when deciding whom to fund.
According to the research, led by Christina Jenq of the University of Hong Kong, attractive, slim, lighter-skinned women are more likely to receive funding.
For the study, the researchers had assistants from different parts of the world rate thousands of photographs of borrowers on how attractive they were, their skin colour and their body type. All the borrowers had applied for loans during June 2009.
The results showed that lenders were more generous towards female borrowers: a group made up only of women was funded 65% to 81% faster than an all-male group.
What’s more, the study found that on a $700 loan, attractive borrowers received a $60 premium. Meanwhile, overweight borrowers suffered a $65 penalty, and darker-skinned borrowers a $40 penalty.
The researchers looked at whether any of these traits were linked to the likelihood of defaulting on the loan, and found that none of them was. The lenders were simply being swayed by their prejudices, perhaps unconsciously.
The tendency to fund attractive women was strongest among less experienced lenders. In other words, experience may cancel out some of lenders’ bias towards attractive borrowers, possibly because they have a better sense of how likely people are to repay a loan.
These findings fit with other research which found that in door-to-door fundraising drives, less attractive people are less likely to receive contributions. Likewise, attractive women get more and larger donations when they go door to door raising funds.
The researchers behind the study suspect that lenders were overwhelmed by the number of options to choose from on the website, and fell back on unconscious stereotypes to decide whom to fund.
These implicit biases aren’t impossible to overcome. Simply being aware that most people would be more inclined to give money to a slim blonde is already a step forward.
Further reading
Featured image: Alexandra Studios, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
