Posted on 01/03/2008 5:08:30 PM PST by blam
Hiring Practices Influenced By Beauty
ScienceDaily (Jan. 3, 2008) — A new study finds that the attractiveness of interviewees can significantly bias outcome in hiring practices, showing a clear distinction between the attractive and average looking interviewees in terms of high and low status job packages offered.
“When someone is viewed as attractive, they are often assumed to have a number of positive social traits and greater intelligence,” say Carl Senior and Michael J.R. Butler, authors of the study. “This is known as the ‘halo effect’ and it has previously been shown to affect the outcome of job interviews.” The study explored the influence of the halo effect in a mock job negotiation scenario where male and female interviewers were shown pictures of attractive or average looking male and female job applicants.
Female interviewers were found to allocate attractive looking male interviewees more high status job packages than the average looking men. Female interviewers also gave more high status job packages to attractive men than to attractive women. Average looking men also received more low status job packages than average looking women. Male interviewers did not differ in the number of high or low status job packages that were given to attractive looking interviewees of either sex, though the male interviewers gave out more low status job packages overall, irrespective of the sex of the interviewee.
However, the male interviewers were not entirely without bias. The electrodermal response (EDR), a psycho-physiological response measured when emotions are used to make a preferential decision, of the interviewers was measured. When emotions are used to make a preferential decision, it is thought that the anticipatory EDR level increases.
There was a highly significant increase in the anticipatory EDR when the male interviewers assigned the low status job packages to the attractive female candidates. The fact that this difference only occurred when assigning low status job packages ensures that the effect could not have been driven by interpersonal attraction, but rather by emotion. Female interviewers did not exhibit any significant EDR differences, suggesting their bias occurs on a cognitive level.
This study is the first application of EDR to examine the influential role of beauty, status and sex during job negotiations. “From a business point-of-view, there is a need for leaders/managers to be aware of their assumptions in decision-making processes, be they strategic or operational, and that they may be prone to emotion and bias,” say the authors.
This study, entitled “Interviewing strategies in the face of beauty: A psychophysiological investigation into the job negotiation process,” is published in volume 1118 of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: The Social Cognitive Neuroscience of Corporate Thinking.
Adapted from materials provided by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Who doesn’t want to work with a hottie? The dumber the better.
next thing you know they will produce a study showing that more attractive people are found to be more attractive.
This article has merit — I get showered with job offers.
DUHHHH!
The babes on Fox News come to mind.
Damn. And you know I had to look!
Ewwwww......
I was once a part owner of a commercial financial services business. I had to hire a lawyer to report directly to me. One day this female applicant showed up who was so breathtakingly drop dead beautiful that I couldn’t even concentrate on the interview.
I didn’t hire her, because I knew I would never get any work done with her around.
Probably really a man!
So could one infer that men handing out low status packages to attractive women were anticipating opportunities to help them, er, better their status? Or just having fun setting them in their place?
2002 - office in shambles, women came to work 1 or 2 days a week (They were paid full time.)
2003 - owner fired the hotties and surrendered all hiring to me (database and web developer)
2003 to present - all is well ... * chuckle * (especially loved my big pay raise and bonuses)
In other breaking news, water is found to be wet.
Huh? Come on man, you know I have that Mel Gibson look working for me. You're just ate up with the jealous monster. ;-)
.
What??? No photos???
Be careful, Helen Thomas may be lurking.
I get a kick out of these studies. They are a lot of hogwash and simply a way to employ researchers who have in this case, failed to address the important measure of character.
Of course its nice if beauty and ability are also present, hotties with character are the best!
I mean , look at what happened to Ms. Pima County of Arizona, Kumari Fulbright. She is a law student, national beauty contestant, and is now facing a 5 count felony conviction for kidnapping
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23001223-952,00.html?from=mostpop
I get a kick out of these studies. They are a lot of hogwash and simply a way to employ researchers who have in this case, failed to address the important measure of character.
Of course its nice if beauty and ability are also present, hotties with character are the best!
I don’t find this true at the place where I work; quite the contrary. Bottom line, I ask, what would be wrong with hiring the average hottie vs hiring the average skag?
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