FOUR pains of being beautiful                                              HOME     MEANING OF BEAUTY    PLEASURES OF BEAUTY   PAIN OF BEAUTY   BEAUTY ROUTINE




Now for the bad news about being beautiful. The beauty bias is probably not as strong as some have suggested and not as powerful as we might imagine (Eagly et al., 1991). For example, when it comes to income, in most lines of work it’s better to be smarter than more attractive (Judge et al., 2009). The same goes for persuasion, self-esteem and even attraction: other personal qualities can easily trump beauty.

Psychologists have also begun to uncover the dark side of being beautiful. Given what we already know about the beautiful it may be difficult to have much sympathy, but here are five pains:

1. Less likely to be hired (sometimes)

Although beauty can help in the search for a job, it’s not always true. When employers are making a decision about someone of the same sex, they can let their jealousy get the better of them.

One recent study has suggested that people who are highly attractive are at a disadvantage in the hiring process when the decision-makers are the same sex (Agthe et al., 2011). It seems we perceive beautiful people who are the same sex as a threat.

2. Beauty is beastly



Similarly there’s evidence that female beauty can be a problem in jobs with strong gender stereotypes. For example a beautiful woman may be at a disadvantage when applying for a job which is associated with masculinity, like a prison guard or a mechanical engineer (Johnson et al, 2010).

The same doesn’t seem to be true for attractive men. They can happily apply for jobs as nurses, lingerie salespersons or HR managers without their beauty counting against them.

3. Perceived to be less talented

The halo effect tells us that when we judge more attractive members of the opposite sex, we generally assume they’re more talented than those who are less attractive. This happens even though what they do or say is no cleverer than less attractive people.

But this changes when it’s members of the same sex. In a study by Anderson and Nida (1978) highly attractive people of the same sex were judged as less talented than average-looking people.

4. Lucky to be pretty

If beautiful people are successful, is it because of their talent, or is it just their looks? After all, people are lucky to be beautiful and we know all the advantages of that.

Research finds that when judging their own sex, people are more likely to think beautiful people’s success is down to their beauty, not their talent (Forsterling et al., 2007). So you’re lucky to be pretty, but probably just rely on that rather than talent.