This review demonstrates that the physical attractiveness stereotype established by studies of person perception is not as strong or general as suggested by the often-used summary phrase what is beautiful is good. Although subjects in these studies ascribed more favorable personality traits and more successful life outcomes to attractive than unattractive targets, the average magnitude of this beauty-is-good effect was moderate, and the strength of the effect varied considerably from study to study Consistent with our implicit personality theory framework, a substantial portion of this variation was explained by the specific content of the inferences that subjects were asked to make: The differences in subjects* perception of attractive and unattractive targets were largest for indexes of social competence; intermediate for potency, adjustment, and intellectual competence; and near zero for integrity and concern for others. The strength of the physical attractiveness stereotype also varied as a function of other attributes of the studies, including the presence of individuating information. One of the most widely cited conclusions from research on physical attractiveness is summarized by Dion, Berscheid, and Walster's (1972) claim that, in people's perceptions of others, "what is beautiful is good" (p. 285). This statement linking beauty and goodness suggests the existence of a stereotype whereby physically attractive individuals are believed to possess a wide variety of positive personal qualities. In this article, we integrate the available research on the physical attractiveness stereotype to determine the extent to which the statement that what is beautiful is good provides an accurate summary of people's inferences from cues that convey physical attractiveness. In the classic study on the physical attractiveness stereotype, Dion and her associates (1972) had subjects rate facial photographs that had been selected on the basis of judges' agreement that the pictured individuals were low, medium, or high in physical attractiveness. Subjects' ratings pertained to various person-This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grants BNS-8616149 to Richard EX Ashmore and Frances K. Del Boca, Co-Principal Investigators, and BNS-S605256 to Alice H. Eagl>; Principal Investigator. A preliminary report of this research was reported at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, June 1989. A table showing the effect sizes and study characteristics for each study included in the meta-analysis is available from Alice H. Eagly or Richard EX Ashmore. We thank Thomas Alley, Ellen Berscheid, Linda Jackson, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on a draft of the article.

This article reviews research on the evaluation of women and men who occupy leadership roles. In these experiments, the characteristics of leaders other than their sex were held constant, and the sex of the leader was varied. These experiments thus investigated whether people are biased against female leaders and managers. Although this research showed only a small overall tendency for subjects to evaluate female leaders less favorably than male leaders, this tendency was more pronounced under certain circumstances. Specifically, women in leadership positions were devalued relative to their male counterparts when leadership was carried out in stereotypically masculine styles, particularly when this style was autocratic or directive. In addition, the devaluation of women was greater when leaders occupied male-dominated roles and when the evaluators were men. These and other findings are interpreted from a perspective that emphasizes the influence of gender roles within organizational settings.

This article presents a synthesis of research on the relative effectiveness of women and men who occupy leadership and managerial roles. Aggregated over the organizational and laboratory experimental studies in the sample, male and female leaders were equally effective. However, consistent with the assumption that the congruence of leadership roles with leaders' gender enhances effectiveness, men were more effective than women in roles that were defined in more masculine terms, and women were more effective than men in roles that were defined in less masculine terms. Also, men were more effective than women to the extent that leader and subordinate roles were male-dominated numerically. These and other findings are discussed from the perspective of social-role theory of sex differences in social behavior as well as from alternative perspectives.

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