Perceived entitlement causes discrimination against attractive job candidates in the domain of relatively less desirable jobs.

Abstract

People generally hold positive stereotypes of physically attractive people and because of those stereotypes often treat them more favorably. However, we propose that some beliefs about attractive people, specifically, the perception that attractive individuals have a greater sense of entitlement than less attractive individuals, can result in negative treatment of attractive people. We examine this in the context of job selection and propose that for relatively less desirable jobs, attractive candidates will be discriminated against. We argue that the ascribed sense of entitlement to good outcomes leads to perceptions that attractive individuals are more likely to be dissatisfied working in relatively less desirable jobs. When selecting candidates for relatively less desirable jobs, decision makers try to ascertain whether a candidate would be satisfied in those jobs, and the stereotype of attractive individuals feeling entitled to good outcomes makes decision makers judge attractive candidates as more likely to be dissatisfied in relatively less (but not more) desirable jobs. Consequently, attractive candidates are discriminated against in the selection for relatively less desirable jobs. Four experiments found support for this theory. Our results suggest that different discriminatory processes operate when decision makers select among candidates for relatively less desirable jobs and that attractive people might be systematically discriminated against in a segment of the workforce. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Faces of Success: Beauty and Ugliness Premiums in e-Commerce Platforms

“…Studies in labor economics and human resource management suggest that based on perceived fit, people of various degrees of attractiveness may self-select or be selected into occupations and positions that are “suitable” for their appearance (Biddle and Hamermesh 1994; Heilman et al 2004). Attractive people are perceived as more fitting for positions in which a pleasing appearance and sociability are appreciated, whereas unattractive people are regarded as more competent in professions for which technical or professional expertise matters (Gheorghiu, Callan, and Skylark 2017; Lee et al 2018). Likewise, the beauty premium has been found to accrue in situations centered on social interactions (Agthe, Spörrle, and Maner 2011), whereas the ugliness premium plays a role in assessing professional competence (Gheorghiu, Callan, and Skylark 2017; Kanazawa and Still 2018).…”

The Attractiveness Advantage At Work: A Cross-Disciplinary Integrative Review

“…These conclusions are consistent with earlier research which suggests that attractive women are discriminated against when they are not seen as fit for certain jobs, such as management positions , directors of security (Johnson, Podratz, Dipboye, & Gibbons, 2010), or construction workers (Johnson et al, 2014). In addition, both men and women are discriminated against when seen as a personal threat to decision makers' individual goals (e.g., Agthe et al, 2011;Buunk et al, 2016;Lee et al, 2015), and evaluators are weary of attractive individuals when they are evaluating candidates for less desirable jobs because of a concern that such individuals may aspire to more (Lee et al, 2018). Together, we do not observe uniform bias in favor of the attractive, which would predict a systematic preference for attractive individuals regardless of the specific requirements of a position for which the person is being considered or evaluated.…”

“…At the same time, we highlight the relative lack of focus on organizational context features in studies on attractiveness discrimination. Studies in this literature rarely include any richer stimuli such as letters of recommendation , information regarding past work performance Lee et al, 2018), or the target's self-description (Green, Cunningham, & Yanico, 1986; (see Paradise, Conway, and Zweig [1986] and Brooks, Huang, Kearney, and Murray [2014], for exceptions). Although these decontextualized methods are used to ensure experimental control, they require participants to extrapolate jobrelevant skills from the limited information available, potentially artificially inflating the relevance of this factor and leading to unrealistically large estimates of attractiveness effects (Rubinstein, Jussim, & Stevens, 2018).…”

Employability Distress: Factors Affecting ICT Graduates’ Employability and Work Integration in the Workspace

“…The focal point of this paper is ICT graduates as they are the biggest cohort of new job seekers and possibly the most vulnerable group likely to be exposed to the struggle of employability in the industry . Lee, Pitesa, Pillutla and Thau (2018), Saad and Majid (2014) argue that it appears that graduates with degrees in the hard sciences such as chemistry or even in, for instance, engineering, applied information systems (AIS), information technology management (ITM), ICT and computer science (CS) have the likelihood of obtaining employment based on physical attractiveness. Those graduates in the humanities or social sciences are more likely to encounter unemployment challenges or experience longer job searches (Mncayi & Dunga, 2016;Spaull, 2013).…”