Attractiveness Bias

A tendency to see attractive people as more intelligent, competent, morel, and a sociable than unattractive people.

Attentive people are generally perceived more positively than unattractive people. They receive more attention from opposite sex, receive more affection from their mothers, receive more leniency from judges and juries’ and receive more votes from the electorate than do unattractive people. all other beings are equal, attractive people are preferred in hiring decisions, and will make more money doing the same work than unattractive people. The attractiveness bias is a function of both biological and environmental factors.

Biologically specking, people are attractive when they exude health and fertility. Good biological measures for health and fertility are average and symmetrical facial features.

Environmentally specking, men are attracted to women when they exaggerate socially acknowledged features of sexuality (e.g., lipstick to exaggerate lips); and women are attracted to men when they appear to possess wealth and power. (e.g., in studies presenting images of attractive and unattractive people to men and women, along with the description of their occupations, women preferred unattractive men with high-paying occupations equally to attractive men with medium paying occupations. However, men never preferred unattractive women regardless of their financial status. Environmental factors vary considerably across cultures.

[Sources: what is beautiful is good by Karen Dion and science of beauty by Nancy Etcoff]