What is good is beautiful (and what isn’t, isn’t): How moral character affects perceived facial attractiveness.

He, Dexian; Workman, Clifford I.; He, Xianyou; Chatterjee, Anjan

doi:10.1037/aca0000454

Cited by 19 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Previous studies explored the consequences of social context on the prevalence and perceived moral acceptability of cognitive enhancement for improving mental functioning (Conrad et al, 2019;Dinh et al, 2020). Orthogonal to this work, a growing literature in moral cognitive science finds that spontaneous inferences about moral character are informed by aesthetic features like physical appearance (He et al, 2022;Klebl et al, 2022), including the presence or absence of facial anomalies . We sought to establish the generalizability of this effect by determining whether moral judgments and behavior linked to cognitive enhancement also depend on facial typicality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do attitudes about and behaviors towards people who enhance their cognition depend on their looks?

Siegel¹,

Workman²,

Humphries³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Public attitudes towards cognitive enhancement––e.g., using stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin to improve mental functioning––are mixed. Attitudes vary by context and prompt ethical concerns about fairness, obligation, and authenticity/character. While people may have strong views about the morality of cognitive enhancement, how these views are affected by the physical characteristics of enhancers is unknown. Visible facial anomalies (e.g., scars) bear negatively on perceptions of moral character. This pre-registered study (https://osf.io/uaw6c/) tested the hypothesis that such negative biases against people with facial anomalies extend to moral beliefs surrounding their use of cognitive enhancement. In an online survey, 941 participants made moral judgments in response to a vignette about a person who had to decide whether or not to enhance. The vignette was accompanied by a face photograph that ostensibly depicted the potential enhancer and either did or did not have visible anomalies. Participants then learned whether the person ultimately decided to enhance. Next, participants played a modified Trust Game with, they were told, the person from the photograph/vignette. Participants judged enhancement to be less fair and enhancers less authentic if they had facial anomalies, while effects on judgments of moral obligation and on behavior were not detected. These findings extend previous work showing that people with visible differences are subject to an “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype that has negative consequences for perceptions of their moral character. While anomalous faces were judged more harshly, these judgments did not appear to affect behavior. These results are discussed in relation to discrimination and policy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do attitudes about and behaviors towards people who enhance their cognition depend on their looks?

Siegel¹,

Workman²,

Humphries³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The enhancement in facial attractiveness is due to familiarity (Carr et al., 2017 ), emotion (Han et al., 2022 ; Han, Liu, et al., 2020 ), good traits (He et al., 2022 ), and generalization to similar faces (Han, Hu, et al., 2020 ). We found the influence of arousal on the judgment of facial attractiveness, namely, men with high arousal rate female faces as more attractive, thereby supporting the misattribution of arousal hypothesis, which suggests individual misattributed arousal due to attractive features (White et al., 1981 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facial attractiveness in the eyes of men with high arousal

et al. 2023

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IntroductionIndividuals differ in how they judge facial attractiveness. However, little is known about the role of arousal level and gender differences in individuals’ facial attractiveness judgments.MethodsWe used resting‐state electroencephalogram (EEG) to investigate this issue. A total of 48 men (aged 22.5 ± 3.03 years [mean ± SD], range: 18–30 years) and 27 women (aged 20.3 ± 2.03 years [mean ± SD], range: 18–25 years) participated in the experiment. After the EEG was collected, participants were instructed to complete a facial attractiveness judgment task. Connectome‐based predictive modeling was used to predict individual judgment of facial attractiveness.ResultsMen with high arousal judged female faces as more attractive (M = 3.85, SE = 0.81) than did men with low arousal (M = 3.33, SE = 0.81) and women (M = 3.24, SE = 1.02). Functional connectivity of the alpha band predicted judgment of female facial attractiveness in men but not in women. After controlling for the age and variability, the prediction effect was still significant.ConclusionOur results provide neural evidence for the enhancement of the judgment of facial attractiveness in men with high arousal levels, which supports the hypothesis that individuals’ spontaneous arousal contributes to variations in facial attractiveness preferences.

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“…(4) We also measured the assessment of the perceived attractiveness and age of evaluated persons. We know that attractiveness is a powerful signal used to form first impressions about others (e.g., Cui et al, 2019;He et al, 2022). Age also seems to be a powerful signal such that youth is seen in a more positive light than aging (Erber & Long, 2006;He et al, 2021;Miller et al, 2009).…”

Section: The Current Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

First Impressions: Do Faces with Scars and Palsies Influence Warmth, Competence, and Humanization?

Paruzel‐Czachura¹,

Workman²,

Toukhy³

et al. 2023

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A glance is enough for people to assign psychological attributes to another person. Attractiveness is associated with positive attributes contributing to the “beauty-is-good” stereotype. Here, we aimed to study the possibility of a similar but negative bias. Specifically, we asked if people with facial anomalies are associated with negative characteristics, and if so, what accounts for this association. We tested the hypothesis that biases against faces with scars and palsies arise because of negative stereotypes (less warmth and competence) and forms of dehumanization (animalistic and mechanistic). Using well-controlled stimuli (i.e., photographs of real people before and after plastic surgery) and a wide range of faces to avoid race, age, and gender biases in facial perception, we found that anomalous faces were seen as less warm, competent, and were dehumanized (in both animalistic and mechanistic ways). Our study supports the “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype, and further exposes reasons for why faces with anomalies elicit more negative evaluations compared to the same faces before the surgery.

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What is good is beautiful (and what isn’t, isn’t): How moral character affects perceived facial attractiveness.

Cited by 19 publications

References 55 publications

Do attitudes about and behaviors towards people who enhance their cognition depend on their looks?

Do attitudes about and behaviors towards people who enhance their cognition depend on their looks?

Facial attractiveness in the eyes of men with high arousal

First Impressions: Do Faces with Scars and Palsies Influence Warmth, Competence, and Humanization?

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