0:00

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

0:03

In the famous children's fairy tale, The

0:06

Ugly Duckling, a mother duck lays

0:08

a clutch of eggs. When

0:11

the hatchlings emerge, one

0:13

is different from the rest. He

0:15

is huge and awkward looking. His

0:18

feathers are not yellow or black, but

0:20

a muted gray. As

0:23

soon as he's hatched, the bullying begins.

0:27

Not only from his siblings, but other

0:29

animals too. And

0:31

so the ugly duckling roams the countryside,

0:34

slowly accepting his fate of being

0:36

an outcast. Then,

0:40

one day, he sees a flock of

0:42

swans. Entranced by their beauty,

0:44

he swims toward them. As

0:47

he gets closer, he expects them

0:49

to be disgusted by his appearance, just

0:51

like all the other creatures he has encountered.

0:55

But to his surprise, they welcome him

0:57

with open wings. You

1:01

know the rest of the story. The flock of swans

1:03

sees the duckling for what he truly is. A

1:06

young swan who will grow up to be as beautiful as the rest of

1:08

them. I've

1:14

long had misgivings about this story. What is its moral?

1:18

If people don't look like they belong to our

1:20

tribe, it's okay to treat them badly? We can

1:22

only find acceptance among people who are just like us?

1:25

To be ugly is to be cursed? In

1:32

our episode last week, we explored the science of beauty. Why we

1:34

are attracted to it, and how we are

1:37

moved by it. If you

1:39

missed that episode, please do listen to it. This

1:44

week, we explore some of the more complicated elements

1:46

of our fascination with beauty, especially beautiful people. From

1:53

infancy, human beings are fascinated by those

1:55

who are good-looking. They

1:58

are the stars of our movies and magazines. –

2:01

objects of our adoration. But

2:04

our unthinking adulation of beauty can

2:06

come with steep costs. The

2:11

science of beauty bias, this

2:14

week on Hidden Brain. From

2:34

a very young age, we are taught to

2:36

see past people's looks. We

2:38

tell children, don't judge a book by

2:40

its cover. Beauty is only

2:42

skin deep. It's what's

2:44

on the inside that counts. Growing

2:47

up, Vivian Zias heard these aphorisms

2:50

many times. But when she

2:52

was in graduate school, she found herself

2:54

drawing a quick and

2:56

unkind impression about a young

2:58

student. My advisor

3:00

came and he said, I have

3:03

an undergraduate who

3:06

wants to work in the lab, and

3:08

she would be great as a research assistant

3:10

for you. And so he

3:13

introduces me to this student. And

3:15

she was really disheveled. Like

3:18

her hair wasn't like combed well,

3:20

and she wasn't well put together.

3:23

Her appearance looked a little

3:25

messy. And I was like, uh-oh. Vivian

3:28

felt she was in a high-stakes setting. She

3:31

didn't want anyone on her team who

3:33

wasn't top-notch. Would this

3:35

undergraduate be able to cut it? I

3:38

mean, I can—I see it in my mind's

3:40

eye. They're standing there by the doorway into

3:42

the lab, and he just, you know, brings

3:44

her and introduces her to me for the

3:46

first time. And I wasn't happy. But

3:52

we worked together a lot. We worked together over

3:54

the course of a year, and

3:56

she was socially warm

3:59

and engaged. She was

4:01

very orderly and dutiful,

4:03

so she was

4:05

able to meet all the requirements very

4:08

quickly and did it well. It

4:12

turned out that she was one of the best

4:14

research assistants I ended up having. She

4:17

was excellent. My

4:19

impression was so wrong that it has

4:22

stayed with me all these years. Did

4:25

you ever apologize to her for your initial impressions

4:27

of her? I don't know if

4:29

she registered it. I think

4:31

it was still polite. I

4:33

was definitely not rude. I

4:35

think I might have a judgment that

4:38

is registered internally. I

4:40

don't know how much she picked up on that. I

4:43

would be doing a lot of apologizing if every

4:45

time I made a judgment I was

4:47

wrong. I had to apologize. Part

4:54

of the reason the story has stayed with

4:56

Vivian is that she went on to become

4:58

a psychologist who studies the very mistakes she

5:00

made with a young undergrad. Vivian,

5:03

who now works at Cornell University, would

5:05

come to study the so-called beauty bias.

5:08

She says this bias involves leaping to

5:11

a number of unsupported conclusions.

5:14

It is beautiful as good. What

5:20

is beautiful is

5:22

also intelligent

5:26

and popular and strong

5:28

and competent and happy. When

5:33

we judge someone as

5:35

beautiful, we go way beyond

5:37

the judgment of their physical

5:39

appearance to

5:42

making inferences about what

5:44

they are like in a whole number of other

5:46

domains. I

5:50

think they have a lot of friends

5:52

and they're really good parents and they're

5:54

a wonderful partner and they must have

5:57

such fun when they go on vacation. overgeneralize

6:01

way beyond what we should

6:03

based on the information that we're leaning

6:06

from just physical appearance. Vivian

6:10

remembers another time she drew a

6:12

quick inference about someone based on

6:14

looks. We have

6:17

speakers give various academic

6:19

talks and often now

6:22

to advertise the talk you

6:24

see the person's photograph. So

6:28

their photograph is presented along with the title

6:30

of their talk. And I remember

6:32

seeing there was a speaker coming in and

6:35

seeing this person's photograph

6:38

and I didn't think it was a very good photograph. But

6:43

I remember I had a very strong reaction to

6:46

the photograph, which is

6:49

kind of rare because often they're

6:51

very standard pictures that people have

6:54

of themselves. The

6:56

person comes and gives a talk and actually

6:58

that photograph was so strong, it elicited

7:01

such a strong reaction to me, it

7:03

was almost to the point where I

7:05

was like, how could this person give a good talk? It

7:08

was such a strong reaction. The

7:10

person comes to visit, they give a talk

7:12

and they are the

7:14

loveliest person. They are so

7:17

authentic and engaging

7:21

and that initial impression was

7:24

erased. And I think it really

7:26

said a lot about the person and

7:28

their talk and their energy during the

7:30

talk that was able to kind of

7:32

undo that initial impression. And

7:36

of course what usually would happen is that

7:38

we might look at a photograph, reach an

7:40

unconscious conclusion about that person and never attend

7:42

that talk and never have that impression corrected.

7:45

Yeah, absolutely. I

7:47

think also sometimes it is harder to

7:51

correct for it. I think in the

7:53

case of the research assistant and the

7:55

case of the speaker giving their talk,

7:59

they provided... clear and

8:02

diagnostic information that my initial impression

8:04

was wrong. And sometimes

8:07

when we meet someone they

8:09

might not be able to provide that clear information

8:12

that the impression is wrong. You know, some

8:14

interactions are pretty mundane

8:18

and you engage in

8:20

small talk. Perhaps in

8:23

those conversations there wouldn't be

8:25

enough disconfirming information to undo

8:27

that initial impression. In

8:35

fact, the swift conclusions we draw about

8:37

people based on how they look can

8:39

often be confirmed by our perceptions of

8:41

how they act. We

8:43

are often on the lookout for evidence

8:45

in the way people behave that will

8:48

back up our initial impressions. Like

8:50

heat-seeking missiles, we zero in on

8:53

any clues that suggest that our

8:55

biases are not biases but

8:58

facts. Vivian remembers

9:00

the time she saw the movie No Country

9:02

for Old Men. It's based

9:04

on the great novel by Cormac

9:06

McCarthy and it features a psychopathic

9:08

killer named Anton Shigar. Yeah,

9:11

one thing that stuck with me

9:14

was his bow cut, right? His

9:16

haircut was just cut straight across,

9:19

straight down. And I

9:22

think the way that framed his face was

9:25

just he looked like a

9:27

psychopath. And so part

9:30

of me thought that the way he looked

9:33

was the way the actor looked. And

9:36

so to me, I was like, well, that

9:38

must be an easy role since the actor

9:40

looks like that. It's easy

9:42

for him to play a psychopath. Sometime

9:45

later, Vivian was watching the Oscars.

9:48

The actor who played Anton Shigar was up for

9:50

an award and Vivian realized

9:52

she had pictured him all

9:55

wrong. The way

9:57

he presented himself in that movie was

10:00

drastically different than the way he typically

10:02

presents himself. And at the Oscars, Xavier

10:05

Bardem is

10:07

a very attractive man, and

10:10

very handsome,

10:13

warm. He transformed

10:15

himself physically for

10:17

that role. And it's really interesting

10:19

because sometimes you think, I

10:22

mean, that's the same person. The

10:24

person in the movie would

10:26

not be someone that you would judge as attractive,

10:30

he's unattractive. And yet he

10:32

as an actor is extremely

10:34

attractive. I

10:36

mean, really what this shows is that he was actually acting.

10:39

He wasn't just playing himself. He was

10:41

actually acting. And when I

10:43

first saw it, I was like, that's the

10:45

way he looks. But it was

10:47

part of how he acted that gave

10:50

off this impression of who he was. I

10:53

asked Vivian why we draw such sweeping conclusions

10:56

from the faces we see. I

10:59

think that as social beings, we want to make

11:01

sense of this world that we're in. And

11:03

the social world is highly complex. And

11:06

so we want to make a prediction of who

11:08

is it that we're interacting with. And

11:11

so we use these cues

11:13

that we see to make predictions, and

11:15

it kind of simplifies the world for us. Most

11:26

of us know that discriminating against

11:28

people on the basis of race

11:30

or gender or sexual orientation is

11:33

wrong. But it's harder to

11:35

be outraged by the beauty bias, even

11:37

though it can have pernicious effects in the world.

11:40

That's because when we stare adoringly

11:42

at movie stars and music icons,

11:45

this bias doesn't feel like a negative

11:48

thing. It feels positive,

11:51

even joyous. When

11:57

we come back, how appearances influence

11:59

our interactions with others, affect

12:02

our relationships, and shape the

12:04

most important decisions in our lives. You're

12:09

listening to Hidden Brain. I'm

12:11

Shankar Vedanta. Support

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for Hidden Brain comes from Indeed. You're

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13:23

Hi, everyone. I've

13:29

joined forces with bestselling author and Harvard

13:32

professor Arthur C. Brooks. Our book, Build

13:34

the Life You Want, resonated with readers

13:36

with a debut at number one on

13:38

the New York Times Bestseller List. Now

13:41

Arthur and I are together again for

13:43

this three-part podcast series. We have a

13:45

personality profiling test. I think people are

13:47

loving that too. We'll also answer questions

13:49

from readers. How has your approach to

13:52

getting happier changed? So

13:54

let's get happier. This is Build the Life

13:56

You Want, the podcast. This

14:02

is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantu. On

14:06

TV, celebrities hawk everything from

14:08

shoes and soda to clothes

14:11

and car insurance. Why

14:14

is this? Why do we

14:16

care if Tiger Woods wears Nike apparel?

14:19

Or if Patrick Mahomes uses State

14:21

Farm insurance? Well,

14:23

the answer is obvious. If

14:26

we like the celebrities, advertisers

14:28

are hoping that some of our affection

14:30

for these stars will rub

14:32

off on their products. At

14:37

Cornell University, psychologist Vivian Zayas has

14:39

studied why we draw quick conclusions

14:41

about others based on how they

14:43

look and the effects

14:45

this has on our lives. She

14:47

says the beauty bias is part of a larger

14:50

phenomenon in psychology known

14:52

as the halo effect. The

14:54

halo effect is that when we judge

14:57

someone to be attractive, we

15:01

go beyond their physical appearance and

15:03

make a whole bunch of other

15:05

inferences that they're good at work

15:07

and have lots of friends and they're

15:10

funny and social and make

15:12

a lot of money. And so

15:15

the halo effect is just that we

15:17

go way beyond the judgment

15:19

of attractiveness and make an inference that a

15:21

person is good at a whole number of

15:23

other things and has a

15:26

number of positive attributes. So

15:29

some years ago, Vivian, you brought people

15:31

into the lab and you showed them

15:33

photographs and these photographs resemble someone they

15:35

knew. Tell me about this study and

15:38

what you found. So

15:40

in this study, we brought in

15:42

couples, heterosexual couples that had been

15:44

in a relationship for about six

15:46

months and we took

15:49

their photographs. They

15:51

then came back in to the

15:53

lab and we told them that they were

15:55

going to do a task where we

15:57

were going to show them photographs of strangers.

16:00

strangers, and that they were just going to make

16:02

their snap judgment. They were going to assess whether they

16:05

thought the person was trustworthy or

16:07

not, attractive or not, intelligent or

16:09

not, competent or not. But

16:12

what they didn't know is that we had

16:14

taken the photographs of their partner, and

16:17

we had morphed them with

16:20

the photographs of another participant's partner.

16:24

People thought they were simply reading pictures of

16:26

random strangers. What they didn't

16:28

know is that half of those pictures had been

16:30

altered. Vivian and her

16:33

team morphed photographs of strangers

16:35

with photographs of people's own

16:37

romantic partners. In other

16:39

words, a volunteer may have thought she was looking at

16:41

the face of a stranger, but

16:43

the face she saw subtly resembled

16:45

her boyfriend. And

16:47

what we found was that women

16:49

in particular were more likely to

16:51

judge a stranger who

16:54

bore resemblance to their partner

16:56

more favorably, as more trustworthy,

16:58

as more intelligent, more attractive,

17:00

less aggressive. Men

17:04

only showed a preference for

17:07

the judgment of attractive. They ended up

17:09

judging strangers that resembled their partner as

17:11

more attractive. But for other traits, there

17:13

was no significant difference.

17:17

It was a simple test of the idea that we

17:19

have quick and automatic associations with

17:21

the faces we see. In

17:24

this case, by having a photograph

17:26

resemble a volunteer's boyfriend, the volunteer

17:28

associated the warm feelings she had

17:30

for her partner with

17:32

the stranger. So in this

17:35

study, we were interested in

17:37

what's called transference. And

17:39

I know transference is a

17:42

psychodynamic term, Freudian term,

17:45

where the patient is,

17:47

you know, having a therapy session

17:49

and then starts transferring their feelings

17:52

from an existing relationship onto the

17:54

therapist. And that was

17:56

deemed as an important milestone

17:58

because then in therapy,

18:00

they can kind of work out some

18:02

of these dynamics that the patient is

18:04

experiencing in their existing relationships. But

18:07

there's social cognitive perspective. We

18:10

can study transference where if

18:12

you meet someone and

18:15

they bear some resemblance to someone that

18:17

you already know, it's going to

18:19

basically activate the representation, the memory you have of

18:22

the person that you know. You

18:24

might not be aware that's being activated.

18:26

You can activate that memory implicitly. You're

18:28

not necessarily consciously aware. And

18:31

you activate the memory of the person you already know and

18:33

you basically transfer that memory onto

18:35

this new person. And you think

18:37

the new person has all the characteristics of the person

18:39

that you already know. You're

18:41

going way beyond the information that

18:43

you have and you think that

18:45

the person is, they're

18:48

attractive, they're trustworthy, they're

18:51

competent, they're intelligent, they're

18:54

less aggressive. Christian

18:56

emphasizes that so much of this

18:58

happens outside of our awareness. The

19:01

volunteers in the study had no idea

19:04

why they suddenly felt warmly toward one

19:06

stranger and cold toward

19:08

another. At

19:10

the end of the study, we asked them, what

19:12

did you think the study was about? So we were looking

19:15

to see, are they saying, well, you showed me photos of

19:17

my partner. And people didn't

19:19

say that. Then we asked

19:21

them, did anyone seem familiar? We

19:25

basically were probing to see where they are aware.

19:28

A small fraction expressed

19:30

some whence we

19:32

said, did any of the

19:35

people look like your partner? A small

19:37

fraction did report sub-acknowledgement. But even when

19:39

we removed them and we only looked

19:41

at people who didn't report any awareness,

19:44

we still found these effects. I

19:46

think the mechanisms why

19:48

this occurs or how this occurs is

19:51

that when you meet someone, you

19:54

know, we're trying to make a prediction of what they're

19:57

like and we have this huge database in memory of

19:59

all of them. all past experiences.

20:01

And so when this person has

20:04

some features that map on to

20:07

features of people that

20:09

we already know, it activates that

20:11

memory. And so then

20:14

we fill in the blanks. We're

20:16

not even aware that the memory of our partner

20:18

is activated, but now we start

20:20

filling in the blanks and

20:23

we say, I like

20:25

this person. I'm attracted to this

20:27

person. And then we go beyond that judgment

20:30

and say, I think this person is a

20:32

trustworthy person and they're intelligent and they're competent

20:35

and they're safe. They're not going to be aggressive. Notice

20:40

how much information we can draw from just

20:42

a face. This

20:45

of course is exactly what Vivian did

20:47

when she saw the undergraduate student with

20:49

the uncombed hair or the speaker

20:52

who she thought didn't look very

20:54

competent. Now you

20:56

could see that we are careless about the judgments

20:58

we make about other people because

21:00

it doesn't hurt us to

21:02

draw quick conclusions about them. Most

21:05

of the time we draw conclusions about

21:07

people and move on with our lives.

21:09

Our judgments might hurt other people,

21:12

but they don't always hurt us. Vivian

21:16

wanted to test whether people became more

21:18

accurate in their judgments when

21:20

they themselves had something on the line.

21:23

Yeah. So in this study, we

21:26

present participants with

21:29

four financial partners side by

21:31

side and with a

21:34

portrait of what they look like. Every

21:36

time they select a partner, they learn whether

21:38

they get money or they

21:40

lost money and they're supposed

21:42

to figure out who's the best financial

21:45

advisor. Sometimes

21:47

attractive financial partners helped volunteers

21:49

make money, but sometimes

21:52

it was the unattractive financial partner who

21:55

was the wiser choice. The

21:57

question was, over time, people

22:00

learn to ignore attractiveness as a

22:02

cue and focus only on

22:05

the quality of the financial information. So,

22:08

the way that we structured the paradigm

22:10

was really to allow people

22:13

to compare apples to apples. How

22:15

much money are you earning? How

22:18

much money are these financial consultants

22:21

able to confer to you? And

22:24

would we see this halo effect,

22:26

this beauty is good bias even

22:28

when it comes to the money

22:31

that people are earning? And

22:34

presumably in this situation here, the thing that you should

22:36

care about is how much money you're earning because that's

22:38

what you're looking to get out of the

22:40

enterprise. It's not so much whether your partner is

22:42

good looking or not. That should not matter one

22:45

bit. Not one bit. It's

22:47

completely irrelevant, right? You just want to make as much

22:49

money as possible. So

22:51

who did the volunteers tend to pick? The

22:53

financial partners who gave them steady gains over

22:56

time or the financial partners

22:58

who are attractive? What

23:01

we found was that even though

23:04

facial attractiveness is sort of irrelevant to

23:06

what participants were doing in

23:08

this task, they were highly swayed by

23:10

the facial attractiveness of the financial partner.

23:13

They selected the attractive financial

23:16

partners much more often

23:18

than the unattractive. Participants

23:21

would get feedback and when

23:24

there was a loss,

23:27

so the financial advisor conferred

23:29

a loss, financial loss, participants

23:31

would return more quickly to

23:34

the attractive partner than to the

23:36

unattractive partner. Wait, you're saying

23:39

that when they lost money, they still wouldn't

23:41

learn, they still kept going back to the

23:43

attractive partner? They might

23:46

sample someone else for a moment and

23:49

then go back to the

23:51

attractive partner. They were quicker

23:53

to choose them again in the

23:55

future. They were quicker to sort of

23:57

forgive or give the attractive person

24:00

another shot. And then at the

24:02

end of the study participants

24:04

were asked, who do you think was the

24:06

most helpful in helping you earn money? And

24:09

participants strongly thought

24:11

that the attractive financial partner

24:14

was most helpful in

24:16

helping them earn more money. Wow.

24:19

Even when that was not the case? Even

24:21

when that was not the case. It's

24:24

kind of remarkable, isn't it, Vivian? Because

24:26

in some ways you're giving people every

24:28

incentive to learn that attractiveness,

24:30

in fact, is not

24:32

only irrelevant, but in fact potentially

24:34

counterproductive to what their goals

24:36

are, and yet people effectively refuse to

24:38

learn. Yes. And

24:40

even though they learned

24:43

which partners were

24:45

more advantageous, they still

24:47

preferred the attractive

24:49

partner over the unattractive partner.

24:52

I mean, this is a study in

24:54

the lab, so obviously you're not actually

24:56

stealing people's money here. But you can

24:58

see how this can have effects

25:00

and impacts in the real world that could be quite

25:03

profound. Yeah. I mean, it

25:05

really says a lot about how these

25:07

impressions that we make about

25:09

another person based on appearance

25:13

have profound consequences, even

25:15

if those impressions are not right. There's

25:18

been a ton of other work that shows

25:20

a relationship between attractiveness and various life outcomes.

25:23

I'm wondering if you can paint me a

25:25

picture of what some of these other studies

25:27

have found. What is the overall literature on

25:29

the Beauty Bias show, Vivian? It

25:32

shows that individuals who are

25:34

deemed as more attractive obtain

25:37

a number of benefits. In

25:40

the courtroom, they're more likely to

25:42

get lighter sentences. People

25:45

who are judged as more

25:47

attractive earn more money. In

25:49

classrooms, they are more likely to get

25:51

attention from teachers. And so

25:54

starting from an early age, the

25:57

world starts to treat attractive individuals.

25:59

individuals differently than unattractive individuals

26:02

and those create a

26:04

self-fulfilling prophecy where if

26:07

someone treats you as

26:09

if you're a good person, as if

26:11

you're a smart person, then you're more

26:13

likely to meet those expectations. And so

26:16

these types of effects accumulate over a

26:18

person's lifetime. Researchers

26:24

have explored how far the beauty bias will

26:26

go. One study

26:29

examined how parents treat their

26:31

own attractive and unattractive children.

26:34

This is an observational study and

26:37

the research team basically coded

26:40

for the facial attractiveness

26:42

of the child and

26:44

also some of the

26:46

parenting behaviors, especially around

26:48

safety. And one parenting

26:51

behavior that they were looking at is whether the

26:53

parent would buckle in the child in

26:56

the shopping cart as they're going around

26:58

the grocery store. And

27:01

what they were reporting there was

27:03

that children that had been

27:05

judged to be more attractive based on the

27:08

independent coders were more likely to

27:10

be buckled in in the

27:12

shopping cart by

27:14

their parents. It suggests that

27:16

even parents might be affected by this

27:18

type of beauty bias

27:20

when interacting with their own children. Our

27:26

judgments about attractiveness are so sticky

27:29

that Vivian finds people regularly go

27:31

to lengths to preserve their initial

27:33

impressions of others. If

27:35

I think someone is attractive, in other

27:37

words, my behavior toward that person changes

27:40

often without my being aware of it. So

27:44

this is a study done with

27:46

Gulgan Iden, a former graduate student

27:48

and now a professor, and

27:51

we had participants complete a

27:53

survey. And in that survey, there

27:56

were photographs of about

27:58

eight women. And

28:01

we asked them, do you

28:03

like the person in the photograph? Would

28:07

you want to hang out with the person in the photograph? How

28:10

attracted are you to the person in the photograph? And these

28:12

were all same sex. So

28:14

women judging women. They were

28:16

also asked, do you think the woman in

28:19

the photograph is like an extrovert, conscientious? Do

28:21

you think she's agreeable? So what's

28:23

called the big five personality traits. So

28:25

they made personality judgments of the woman.

28:29

What the volunteers in the experiment did not know

28:31

is that they were looking at photos of

28:33

a research assistant. Let's call

28:35

her Jamie. So we have Jamie's

28:38

photograph in the initial

28:40

survey. We selected

28:42

participants so that half the

28:44

people liked Jamie and

28:47

that half the people did not like Jamie so

28:49

much based on the photograph. Then

28:52

they came in and they all interacted with

28:54

Jamie. Now Jamie didn't know how

28:57

they had judged her. They're interacting

28:59

with the same person. But

29:01

if they initially liked her based on the

29:04

photograph, they ended up liking her based

29:06

on the interaction. And if

29:08

they initially were kind of lukewarm

29:10

about her based on the photograph,

29:13

then they remained lukewarm

29:16

after interacting with her. And that's

29:19

really interesting to us because

29:21

we separately had asked participants,

29:24

do you think you can judge a person based

29:26

on their photograph or do you think you would

29:29

like update your impression? And in

29:31

this survey, people think that they'll update

29:33

their impression based on an actual conversation

29:35

with someone. When you talk

29:37

with someone, you get a lot more information than

29:39

a photograph. You hear their

29:41

voice. You see their behaviors. They tell you

29:43

what they like. And

29:46

so participants thought that they would certainly update. And

29:48

that's not what we found at all.

32:00

who thought he was talking to an unattractive

32:03

or average-looking woman. So,

32:06

I mean, what this is suggesting is that if

32:08

I think I'm speaking to somebody attractive, regardless of

32:10

whether the person actually is or isn't attractive, if

32:12

I think I'm talking to someone attractive, what

32:15

the study was suggesting was that I become

32:17

more engaged, but even more than that, the

32:19

person I'm talking with becomes more engaged and

32:21

has an effect on them. And

32:23

so you can see in some ways how the beauty

32:26

bias has effects not just on our behavior, but on

32:28

the targets of our behavior. Yes.

32:30

And in the study where we

32:32

had our participants interact

32:34

with Jamie, we had a

32:37

video camera in that study. And

32:39

what we found was if participants

32:42

liked the woman based on the photograph,

32:45

now when they're interacting with her, we

32:47

coded their behavior and independent coders

32:50

judged the participant as warmer, more

32:53

engaged, more interested. The

32:56

independent coders made the same assessment

32:58

of Jamie, saying she was also

33:00

warmer, more engaged, and more interested.

33:04

And as a result, the participant leaves

33:06

the conversation by saying, oh, wow, we

33:08

had a really great conversation. She was

33:10

really engaged and warm and interested,

33:13

and I really like her. And

33:15

part of the reason the participant ends

33:17

up liking her after the interaction is

33:19

partly because of what the participant elicited

33:22

from her. And

33:24

so participants who, based on the

33:26

photograph for whatever reason, you know, were

33:29

lukewarm towards her, well, they

33:31

were more disengaged, less interested,

33:33

and less warm. Jamie

33:38

in turn would then be less

33:40

engaged, less interested, and less warm

33:42

with the participants who felt lukewarm

33:44

toward her. These

33:46

interactions created a feedback loop.

33:50

And the participant themselves is saying, oh,

33:53

well, that person was less interested, less engaged, and less

33:55

warm. I don't really like them. But

33:57

part of it was what they created, what they brought

33:59

into the situation. Whether

34:04

we realize it or not, we all

34:06

make inferences about what goes on inside

34:08

of a person based on what

34:10

we see on the outside. And

34:13

because we're naturally drawn to what we find

34:15

attractive, there are big benefits to

34:17

being beautiful. If you're good

34:19

looking, chances are you have a leg up,

34:22

socially, academically, even

34:25

economically. But

34:27

is beauty always an advantage? When

34:31

we come back, when beauty

34:33

backfires on us? You're

34:36

listening to Hidden Brain. I'm

34:38

Shankar Vedantam. Hi

34:49

everyone. I've joined forces with bestselling author

34:51

and Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks. Our

34:54

book, Build the Life You Want resonated

34:56

with readers with a debut at number

34:58

one on the New York Times bestseller

35:01

list. Now Arthur and I are together

35:03

again for this three-part podcast series. We

35:05

have a personality profiling test. I think

35:08

people are loving that too. We'll also

35:10

answer questions from readers. How is your

35:12

approach to getting happier changed? So let's

35:15

get happier. This is Build the Life

35:17

You Want, the podcast. Hi,

35:20

Hidden Brain listeners. I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian

35:22

and the host of How to Be a

35:24

Better Human, a podcast from TED. Each week,

35:26

I talk to experts on our show about

35:28

the realistic and often unexpected ways that you

35:30

can improve your life and the world around

35:32

you. On How to Be a Better Human,

35:35

we believe that little changes can have a

35:37

big impact. That's why you'll hear from

35:39

people like author Casey Davis on how to clean

35:41

your house even when you're struggling with depression, or

35:44

parenting expert Dr. Becky Kennedy on how to repair

35:46

relationships when you've made a mistake, which is something

35:48

that we are all going to do at some

35:50

point. Hidden Brain's very own Shankar

35:52

Vedantam drops by to talk about how to

35:54

forge your own path and allow yourself to

35:56

be a different person at different stages of

35:59

your life. How to be a Better

36:01

Human is all about finding practical ways to better connect

36:03

with yourself and with the world, and I really think

36:05

you are going to connect with our show too. Listen

36:08

to How to Be a Better Human wherever you get your

36:10

podcasts. This

36:17

is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantan. There's

36:20

no question about it. If you had

36:23

to choose between being beautiful or not, all

36:25

of us would choose to be gorgeous. There

36:28

are so many advantages to being good looking, right? Yes,

36:33

but not always. At

36:35

the University of Colorado Boulder,

36:37

psychologist Stephanie Johnson has studied

36:39

a paradoxical effect of beauty

36:41

in the workplace. Stephanie

36:44

Johnson, welcome to Hidden Brain. Hi,

36:46

thanks so much for having me. Now

36:50

you found that female entrepreneurs

36:52

are deemed less trustworthy when

36:54

they're attractive. You have an

36:57

interesting term for this. Tell

36:59

me about the term and tell me about the study you conducted.

37:02

Yeah, absolutely. So this was some work I

37:04

did with Leah Sheppard on

37:06

an idea she calls

37:08

the femme fatale effect. It

37:11

really builds from the

37:13

narrow window in which

37:16

more attractive people don't benefit.

37:19

So usually more attractive people walk

37:21

away with better results, but there's this small

37:25

area of research that shows that at least

37:27

for women, being more

37:29

attractive can have negative effects. One

37:31

of those negative effects is that

37:34

people see you as less trustworthy. If

37:36

you think of the femme fatale who's

37:39

able to manipulate others to get her

37:41

way based on her beauty, this

37:44

Greek myth, the sirens, I

37:47

guess this sticks in people's

37:49

minds. More attractive women,

37:52

they're seen as less trustworthy and

37:54

people are more likely to want to fire them. out

38:00

the femme fatale effect in the lab. In

38:03

one study, she presented a female public

38:05

relations executive who was announcing bad news

38:07

at her company. Volunteers

38:09

were shown pictures of the executive. Some

38:12

were shown an attractive woman. Others

38:15

were shown an unattractive woman. Volunteers

38:18

were asked to imagine a scenario. It

38:22

says this company has to

38:24

engage in layoffs and the PR

38:26

person is saying, this is the reason why we're

38:28

doing it. Do you believe her? Do you

38:31

trust her? And what we find is the

38:33

more attractive women are seen

38:35

as less trustworthy. And why

38:37

do you think this is happening? So in

38:39

the scenario you described, the woman is essentially

38:42

acting as a spokesperson for the company and

38:44

you're evaluating whether people trust what she is

38:46

saying and you're finding that the more attractive

38:48

the person is, the less they trust her

38:50

and the less they trust the company. Yeah,

38:53

no, exactly. So why does it happen?

38:55

It's a great question because she's just

38:57

a messenger, right? And you

39:00

often think of messengers and

39:02

spokespersons as being good looking

39:04

because they're in front of the camera. I think

39:06

it's the idea that when we see attractive

39:08

women, you know,

39:10

you want maybe you want to be around

39:13

them. Maybe you feel your heart rate elevated,

39:15

you're more interested in talking to them, but

39:17

you also feel a little bit protective because

39:20

you might fear that

39:23

they can potentially manipulate you. Stephanie

39:27

and her colleagues repeated the study,

39:30

this time using pictures of men. As

39:33

before, they asked volunteers to

39:35

rate the trustworthiness of attractive

39:38

and unattractive men. Yeah,

39:40

no, we didn't find it for men. We looked for

39:42

but didn't find a hemphital

39:45

effect. And

39:48

again, what is your theory about why that would be the case?

39:51

You know, I think it's because of this stereotype

39:54

of the seductress, the, you

39:56

know, woman who's going to use her feminine

39:59

wilds to manipulate. and in track N, I

40:01

don't know that you have

40:03

that same stereotype for the really

40:06

gorgeous male, even

40:08

though I would imagine that he

40:11

can use his masculine whatevers to

40:14

manipulate people. I don't know

40:16

if there's that same character

40:18

in literature and mythology, but

40:21

I don't feel like we have that stereotype

40:23

as strongly as we do for women. Now,

40:27

obviously, when we're thinking about these

40:29

situations, a lot of this is

40:31

happening, you know, perhaps unconsciously

40:33

people are not thinking about this, but when

40:35

you think about the seductress or the template

40:37

of the seductress, is this something

40:39

that affects both men and women? In other words,

40:41

I would do both men and women. Are they

40:43

suspicious of good-looking women? Yes.

40:46

So we looked for gender

40:48

differences in respondents, and

40:51

I guess I didn't really think

40:53

we would find the same effect

40:55

for women mistrusting other

40:57

women, maybe because I'm like a woman

41:00

who loves women kind of woman, but we

41:03

didn't find differences in the respondents. You

41:05

mean that women showed the same suspicion

41:07

for good-looking women as men did? Yes.

41:11

Yes. Women were just as

41:13

suspicious as men.

41:17

The idea that attractive women are

41:19

somehow less trustworthy is an example

41:21

of something called the beauty is

41:23

beastly effect. Coined by

41:25

a group of researchers in the 1970s and

41:27

80s, the beauty is beastly

41:29

effect is like the beauty bias in

41:32

reverse. The original

41:34

work was done by an outstanding

41:37

researcher, Madeline Heilman, and

41:39

she was looking at what

41:42

is beautiful is good, just that

41:44

the more attractive people tend to

41:46

be more

41:48

successful, loved more, get more reward seen as extroverts,

41:51

intelligent, all the things. But

41:55

she was finding that there

41:57

was an instance in which this wasn't true, and

41:59

it was for women applying

42:01

for managerial jobs, which this

42:03

was done in the 1970s. And so, you know, at

42:07

that time, managerial jobs were seen

42:09

as masculine today, I

42:11

think over 50% of managers are women. So I

42:14

don't know that that would be true. But she

42:16

found that more attractive women were

42:18

actually seen as less competent, and

42:21

less suited for

42:23

managerial jobs than attractive

42:26

men, unattractive men, or

42:28

unattractive women. And so she

42:30

coined this phrase, the

42:32

beauty is beastly effect. Madeline

42:36

Heilman speculated the bias might come

42:39

about because of the preconceptions people

42:41

had about leadership, and mismatches

42:43

in people's minds between the

42:45

kind of person who becomes a leader, and

42:48

the kind of person who is an attractive

42:50

woman. She

42:52

phrased it as a lack of fit.

42:55

So the job is

42:57

masculine. Attractive women

43:00

are actually by definition feminine. If

43:02

you look at, you

43:04

know, characteristics of what makes men

43:06

and women attractive for women being more feminine

43:08

is, you know,

43:10

correlated with being more attractive, it's

43:13

seen as more attractive. And so if I see you

43:15

as feminine, you actually don't have

43:17

what it takes to do this masculine job

43:19

because you're too feminine for

43:21

this masculine work. And it sounds silly for managerial

43:24

jobs, I would say at this point, because I

43:26

actually see leaders in management

43:28

is having a lot of feminine skills,

43:31

like you have to have empathy and be

43:34

supportive. But if you were

43:36

to take it to the extreme and say

43:38

like, okay, what about this gorgeous

43:40

woman comes in and applies for a job

43:43

as a construction worker, and she's wearing heels

43:45

and, you know, has

43:47

on makeup, you're like, well,

43:49

is she going to be able to lift the

43:52

equipment and get all dirty and wear the

43:54

work boots? That's what the lack

43:56

of fit concept was. So

43:58

I spoke some time ago with Marco Patesha at the

44:01

University of Maryland, I believe he is now at

44:03

the Singapore Management University,

44:06

he ran a study looking at

44:08

how good-looking men fare in the

44:10

workplace. Now he found that good-looking

44:12

men were always considered more competent

44:14

regardless of profession. But then

44:16

he looked at how these men were evaluated

44:18

by their colleagues, and he found that because

44:20

of the stereotype that good-looking men are competent,

44:23

these men were treated less well in

44:25

workplaces that were competitive. I want to play

44:28

you a short clip of what he told

44:30

me. When there are

44:32

these subtle hints of competition within colleagues,

44:34

as is often the case, then

44:36

attractive males are actually at disadvantage

44:39

and they're actually discriminated against. So

44:42

if you're working on a sales team and

44:44

things are competitive between you and the other

44:46

salespeople, and you mistakenly believe that a good-looking

44:48

salesman is going to be a better salesman,

44:51

now you might be more likely to be

44:53

biased against him. So this might be an

44:55

example where the good-looking

44:57

man now actually has tougher

44:59

sledding than the average-looking man.

45:03

That's right. I loved

45:05

that study because to me, I couldn't

45:08

believe they found a beauty

45:10

is beastly bias for men. But

45:13

when you read it, the study and

45:15

the nuance, it's that the people

45:17

making the decisions would be indirect

45:19

competition with that man, which

45:22

isn't often the case for people

45:24

you hire. But what that study

45:26

showed is people are

45:29

self-interested, and if I

45:31

know that I'm going to bring someone onto the team

45:35

that can out-compete me because they're better

45:37

looking and they're more competent, then

45:40

I might be less likely to give them a chance. But

45:43

isn't it the case that this is not just about

45:45

hiring? So to go back to the sales example that

45:47

we talked about, let's say you have a car dealership

45:49

and you have like 20 salespeople,

45:52

and you have three very good-looking salesmen

45:55

on this team, I think what the

45:57

Petitia study is suggesting is that These

46:00

men might actually have a tougher

46:02

go of it among their colleagues because

46:04

their colleagues see them as more threatening

46:06

because of the association between being good-looking

46:08

and competent and therefore a threat. No,

46:11

absolutely. And you see this on sales

46:14

teams all the time that, you

46:17

know, a potential client or

46:19

customer comes in and do I

46:22

call the person who I'm trying to refer them to

46:24

or do I try to steal the customer because it's

46:27

one of those tough things that

46:29

like I can work really

46:32

hard, I can stay extra hours, I

46:35

can, you know, try to get ahead but I can't

46:38

really, it's pretty hard to change

46:40

my appearance. And so it

46:43

becomes like a real

46:45

competitive advantage for people that might

46:47

threaten others in the organization. I

46:51

mean, it's an interesting idea because I think

46:53

both with the case of good-looking women and

46:55

good-looking men, I think our

46:58

stereotype as a general rule is that these

47:00

people always have it good. They always have

47:02

it easy. And I think what this research

47:04

is suggesting is that at least in some

47:07

limited circumstances, they actually might not. Yeah,

47:10

I think that's a good, you know, summary of

47:13

at least what my research shows and I

47:15

find that more attractive women are more likely

47:17

to experience sexual harassment and doubts of competence and

47:19

all these other things. And

47:21

so I'm, you know, very sensitive to that. I

47:24

think these are important findings. And

47:26

if you just look at the overall

47:29

data, at the end

47:31

of the day, as you started our conversation,

47:33

we would all be better off being

47:35

beautiful. Like that

47:38

is the strongest effect. Even

47:41

though there's instances where people might not trust

47:43

you, think they feel more

47:46

competitive toward you. Your

47:49

salary is still higher, particularly

47:51

for men compared to

47:53

women, for being more attractive. Stephanie

47:56

has found that one way to mitigate the negative

47:58

effects of beauty in the workplace is

48:00

to bring the bias to the surface to

48:02

make people aware of the bias. In

48:05

one study, she had volunteers evaluate

48:07

beautiful candidates for a job where

48:10

the candidates expressly put the issue

48:12

of their attractiveness on the table.

48:16

And they say, I realize I

48:18

don't look like your typical construction

48:21

worker, or I

48:23

realize there aren't a lot of women in

48:25

construction, and then is followed with,

48:29

but if you look at my resume, you'll see I

48:31

have a lot of experience in this area, and I'm

48:33

very competent. In the

48:35

other condition, the control condition, they

48:38

don't acknowledge their appearance or their gender. They

48:40

just say, if you look at my resume,

48:42

you'll realize I have a lot of experience, and I'm

48:44

very competent. And we found less bias

48:48

against attractive women when they acknowledge the

48:50

fact that they were different. And

48:52

I, you know, what does this mean? I

48:56

think people are focusing on the fact that this

48:59

person doesn't fit in. They're not really listening to what

49:01

they're saying. They're just like, this is what is she

49:03

doing here? And when you

49:05

acknowledge it, you kind of like pop them out of their

49:08

bubble, and then of course they say, oh,

49:10

no, I wasn't thinking that at all. And then

49:12

they start paying attention to what you're saying. Right.

49:16

So in other words, calling attention to the

49:18

bias and basically saying, you know, it may

49:20

appear that I'm not a good fit, allows

49:22

people in some ways to maybe stop thinking

49:24

about this unconsciously and start thinking

49:26

about it consciously and say, oh, yeah, you know, in fact, I

49:28

did think that you were not a good fit. Thanks

49:30

for flagging that. And now maybe I'll actually give

49:32

you a serious second look. I think so. Yeah.

49:36

I mean, I feel like you have to tread carefully

49:38

because I can't imagine going into that for, you know,

49:41

my interview and saying,

49:43

listen, I know I'm so beautiful.

49:45

And like, and that's weird. Because

49:50

then there's like a whole other list

49:52

of problems they might have with like

49:55

this person, a narcissist and not very

49:57

beautiful. So probably insane.

50:00

And yeah, so

50:02

I think there's caveats. You

50:06

know, we tried to say, I know I don't

50:08

look like your typical construction

50:10

worker. I realize I'm

50:12

probably younger than many people in your

50:15

organization, but I started working, I have

50:17

10 years of work experience, even at

50:19

this young age. So

50:22

one of the complicated things about the

50:24

beauty bias is that unlike biases

50:26

like racism or sexism, where we would

50:28

say, you know, it's wrong in every

50:30

circumstance and every situation, there

50:33

are many domains where we all enthusiastically endorse

50:35

the importance of beauty. So no one would

50:37

find it problematic if you said that you

50:39

liked a movie star because of how he

50:41

looks so that you admire a fashion model

50:43

because she's gorgeous. And of course,

50:45

in our personal lives, recognizing and complimenting

50:47

one another on how we look is

50:49

routine in many relationships and almost something

50:51

of a requirement in romantic

50:53

relationships. I'm wondering if this complicates the

50:55

fight against the beauty bias, the fact

50:57

that we hardly endorse the bias, in

50:59

fact, we don't even think of it

51:01

as a bias in many domains

51:04

of our lives. Does that make it harder to actually

51:06

fight it in other domains? I

51:09

think it makes it impossible to fight it

51:11

in other domains. You know, I think psychologically,

51:13

I would say it's

51:15

not possible to get rid of it. In

51:18

my head, in my mind, I unconsciously

51:20

will make eye contact longer

51:24

with people who are better looking. Like studies show

51:26

this. I can try not

51:28

to. If I see a good looking person, I can be like,

51:30

oh, and let me not look at them. But

51:33

realistically, if I'm not, you

51:35

know, today I'll probably be good, but tomorrow I probably

51:37

will not. So I don't

51:40

think we as humans can

51:42

overcome the bias. So

51:44

I think instead you have to have systems

51:46

and structures in place, like at least

51:48

in a hiring context or workplace context, in a dating

51:51

context, you know, you do you. When

51:53

it comes to hiring and

51:55

making good business decisions, finding

51:58

ways to evaluate people. that

52:01

are not subject to the bias of appearance.

52:12

Stephanie Johnson is a psychologist at

52:14

the University of Colorado Boulder. She's

52:17

also the author of Inclusify, the

52:19

Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to

52:22

Build Innovative Teams. Stephanie,

52:24

thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

52:27

Thank you so much for having me. Thank

52:30

you. Hidden

52:35

Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our

52:39

audio production team includes

52:41

Bridget McCarthy, Annie Murphy-Paul,

52:43

Kristen Wong, Laura Querell,

52:45

Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes,

52:47

Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury.

52:50

Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm

52:52

Hidden Brain's executive editor. If

52:55

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53:24

Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.

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