Research Methods Presentation

1. The Beauty Bias: Appearance
Discrimination Used Across
Various Settings
By: Debbie Gleason

2. The Good, the Bad, and the Grotesque: Why
The Beauty Bias is Important
• Attractive: Heroes and Princesses
Unattractive: Evil Characters
• What happens when the hero is unattractive?
Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1996

3. What is the Beauty Bias?
•This stereotype refers to the tendency of thinking
that people who are physically attractive will also
possess other desirable characteristics.
-Traits include: being happier, smarter, having more
friends, etc.
- Can occur on a conscious or subconscious level
which adds to why this is important to study

4. Foundations:
• Evolution plays a role in the foundation of this
appearance bias.
• Despite universally held perceptions of beauty in
both sexes, men tend to place significantly
higher value on physical appearance in a partner
than women do (Buss, 2003)

5. Foundations Continued…
• Newborn babies prefer to look at attractive faces
- Alan Slater, 2000
-Research suggests that face recognition is
hardwired at birth rather than learned

6. Consequences of the Beauty Bias
• Attractive children are punished less
severely: Marshuetz, 2005
• The Beauty Bias is present in legal
contexts: Darby & Jeffers, 1988

7. Hypotheses
*Participants will attribute positive
personality characteristics (morality) to
more attractive individuals while
attributing negative ones to less
attractive individuals.
*Participants will most likely think the
unattractive person is guilty
* Participants will find the necessity of a
trial less important in determining guilt
for the less attractive person

8. Participants:
The overall study consisted of 120
participants
- 10 individuals: 5 Women and 5 Men
- Convenience sample: found in library
- Other variables were not accounted for
- No compensation

9. Design
• Two Group Between Subjects Design
-Half received article with attractive picture
-Half received article with unattractive picture
-Important that participants do not find out about
both conditions (pictures) in order to avoid
participant expectancy bias or carryover effects.

10. Materials and Procedure
MARQUETTE -- Marquette attorney James Nancarrow was
named Tuesday as a suspect in an embezzlement case
in Marquette.
He is charged with embezzling between $50,000
and $100,000.
He was expected to be arraigned in district court Tuesday
afternoon, but he did not show up, and the arraignment
was postponed until November 1.
Nancarrow's attorney, Steve Polich, indicated that his client
had been hospitalized a Northstar Health System
in Iron River. His medical condition was not disclosed.
A hearing was held via video conference, however, with a
visiting judge out of Chippewa County. Nancarrow was not
present for the hearing.
Bond was set at $100,000 cash assurety, and Nancarrow's
attorney indicated that his client had already
provided $10,000 cash to the court.

11. Manipulation: Attractive vs. Unattractive

12. Results
Guilt
Attractive: (M=2.93, SD=.97)
Unattractive: (M=3.33, SD=.93)
Necessity of Trial
Attractive: (M=3.12, SD=1.3)
Unattractive: (M=3.53, SD=1.3)
Immorality
Attractive: (M=2.50, SD=.98)
Unattractive: (M=2.97, SD=1.23)

13. T Test
• Guilt t(118)=2.3 p<.050
• Necessity of Trial t(118)=1.68 p<.050
• Immorality t(118)=2.3 p<.050

14. Graph of Results:
4
3.5
3
2.5
2 Attractive
Unnattractive
1.5
1
0.5
0
Guilt Need for Trial Immorality

15. Discussion:
• Our Predictions were correct
• The unattractive person was rated higher
on having the negative traits: guilt and
immorality
• Attractive person was rated lower on
negative traits

16. Strengths & Limitations
• Brief Article allowed for participants to
become more engaged and less likely to
become bored
• Pilot testing the level of
attractiveness for both
conditions
• Experimenter Bias
• Generalization
• Presentation of Pictures (Background/Color)

17. Fixes:
Experimenter Bias: Making the experiment a
double procedure
Generalization: If replicated, add more races to the
sample or at least add 2 white female pictures as
a comparison
Presentation of Pictures: Try to find pictures with
similar backgrounds or try making the pictures
color instead of black/white

18. The Big Picture:
• Affects each and every one of us
- In addition, if the consequences of such a bias
are accurate then society is unjust
• We must better understand the foundations and
possible causes in order to come closer to fixing
issues that surround it
- Marriage, Jobs,
Grades, Friends
and Families

19. Sources:
• Buss, David (2003) [1994] (hardcover).
The Evolution of Desire (second ed.). New
York: Basic Books. pp. 57, 58, 60–63.
• Marshuetz, Christy, & Olsen, Ingrid R.
(2005). Facial Attractiveness is Appraised
in a Glance. Emotion, 4, 498-502
• Slater, Alan (2000). New Born Infants
Prefer Attractive Faces. Infant Behavior
and Development Volume 21.2, 345-354