How Female Physical Attractiveness Affects Others’ Judgments of Personality and Ability in a Simulated Recruitment Situation

Abstract

Introduction:Appearance is an important factor that affects how we feel and think about others. Previous studies have shown that physically attractive people are rated more favorably in political, legal and managerial settings than less attractive people. This experimental study was conducted to investigate whether one's level of facial attractiveness affected one's personality and ability ratings by others in a simulated recruitment context and whether the gender of the raters moderated this relationship. Method: A total of 88 university students (44 females) from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University-HCM, were randomly divided into two groups: either read a profile of an attractive female candidate for a job vacancy or an unattractive female candidate with the same profile and the same vacancy. The participants were then asked to evaluate the candidate's personality characteristics, the chance of being shortlisted for a job interview, and suggested a starting salary. Results: The personality of the more attractive candidate was rated significantly more positive than that of the unattractive candidate. The gender of the raters did not moderate this rating, suggesting that both male and female participants were similarly influenced by the candidate's appearance. No significant differences in the ratings for shortlisting likelihood and starting salary were found. Conclusion: This study has provided some experimental evidence that Vietnamese young adults tend to give more favorable ratings of personality to a person with high facial attractiveness. This shows the need to consider removing the requirement of profile image in job applications if it is not utterly necessary and raises awareness of potential bias among recruiters to minimize appearance discrimination during the recruitment process.