Although physically attractive people enjoy the advantage of others’ positive impressions, women applying for jobs in traditionally male jobs may be disadvantaged by female gender and attractive appearance.

Madeline Heilman

The “beauty is beastly effect” is a hiring bias favoring men or less attractive women for “masculine” jobs, described by Yale University’s Madeline E. Heilman and Lois R. Saruwatari.

Lois Suruwatari

They found that attractiveness was an advantage for men seeking managerial and non-managerial roles, but attractive women had an advantage only when seeking lower-level, non-managerial roles.

Michelle Hebl

Attractiveness and gender can be considered a “stigma,” just as disability, obesity, and race.
Rice University’s Michelle R. Hebl and Robert E. Kleck of Dartmouth College reported that people in these categories can reduce hiring biases by acknowledging their “stigmatizing” characteristic during the interview.

Robert Kleck

Women who proactively addressed the employer’s potential concern about gender or appearance in a traditionally male role were rated higher in employment suitability in a study by University or Colorado’s Stefanie K. Johnson and Traci Sitzmann, with Anh Thuy Nguyen of Illinois Institute of Technology.

This proactive approach buffered the impact “hostile sexism” while increasing “benevolent sexism’s” link to employment suitability ratings.

Stefanie Johnson

Evaluators said they assumed that these candidates possessed more “masculine” traits than other female candidates.
These assessors were less likely to negatively evaluate these women for behaving in contrast to traditional gender role norms.

Traci Sitzmann.

-*How effective you found “pre-emptive objection-handling” in workplace negotiations?

RELATED POSTS:

• Attractiveness Bias in Groups
• How Much Does Appearance Matter?
• Executive Presence: “Gravitas”, Communication…and Appearance?
• “Self-Packaging” as Personal Brand: Implicit Requirements for Personal Appearance?
• How Accurate are Personality Judgments Based on Physical Appearance?

©Kathryn Welds