The attractiveness advantage at work: A cross-disciplinary integrative review
Compared
with people of average attractiveness, the highly attractive earn roughly 20
percent more and are recommended for promotion more frequently. The dominant
view of this “attractiveness advantage” is one of taste-based discrimination,
whereby attractive individuals are preferred without justification in
economic productivity. We conduct a comprehensive review of research on
attractiveness discrimination, finding relatively more evidence that this
phenomenon constitutes, to some extent, statistical (as opposed to solely
taste-based) discrimination, in which decision makers assume that attractive
people are more competent and discriminate based on instrumental motives. We
then review research that speaks to whether decision makers might be correct
in assuming that attractive workers are more productive, finding that the
attractive possess a slight advantage in human and a notable advantage in
social capital. We finally review studies evaluating whether an advantage
exists beyond that explained by capital differences. We find that the current
body of work provides inconclusive evidence of taste-based but relatively
more conclusive evidence of statistical discrimination processes. Our
integrative view suggests how attractiveness biases can be detected more
effectively, and points to key directions for future research on the sources
of the attractiveness advantage. We conclude by discussing the promise of an
integrative approach to understanding other achievement gaps, such as those
on the basis of gender, race, and social class. |