Strategically Stunning

Abstract

The phenomenon of increased desire for, and use of, appearance-enhancing items during times of economic recession has been termed the lipstick effect The motivation underlying this effect has been attributed to women's desires to enhance their attractiveness to financially stable partners (Hill, Rodeheffer, Griskevicius, Durante, & White, 2012). In the present research, we found evidence for our proposal that during times of economic recession, the heightened economic concern experienced by women translates into increased desire to use appearance-enhancing items to both attract romantic partners and create a favorable impression of themselves in the workplace, as both strategies can help women become secure financially. We also found that women with high economic concern elect to improve their professional appearance more frequently than their romantic attractiveness, which suggests that their motivation to obtain resources through a job dominates their motivation to obtain resources through a partner.

[Published] - Social Utilitarianism in Digital Interactions and Distant Worlds

“…Consistent with previous research (Dhir et al, 2016;Elias & Gill, 2017;Varghese, 2017), we found that women are more likely to use skin-lightening filters than men when posting on social media. This is consistent with research suggesting that women attend more to their appearance than men (Bhogal et al, 2016;Uss et al, 2020;Krems et al, 2020;Kulesza et al, 2014;Netchaeva & Rees, 2016;Parrett, 2015).…”

“…Compared to men, women tend to be more concerned with, judged more for, and experience more consequences based their appearance (Buss et al, 2020). As a result, women are more likely to alter their appearance for socially utilitarian reasons (Krems et al, 2020), such as more attractive women being more likely to receive help from strangers (Bhogal et al, 2016), attractive servers earning more tips from customers (Parrett, 2015), women wearing cosmetics sell more retail products (Kulesza et al, 2014), and women concerned with economic scarcity are more likely to alter their appearance for the acquisition of resources (Netchaeva & Rees, 2016).…”

How Financial Constraints Influence Consumer Behavior: An Integrative Framework

“…For example, economic uncertainty is associated with higher purchases of beauty products by women (Hill, Martin, et al, 2012;Hill, Rodeheffer, et al, 2012). Women may purchase more beauty products in order to secure greater resource stability, which likely bolsters their sense of control (Hill, Martin, et al, 2012;Hill, Rodeheffer, et al, 2012;Netchaeva & Rees, 2016).…”

Economic cycles as a source of social influence on individuals

“…However, these cues consistently increased women's desire for products that increase attractiveness to mates" (p. 1). Subsequent research by Netchaeva and Rees (2016) extended these findings by showing that "during times of economic recession, the heightened economic concern experienced by women translates into increased desire to use appearance-enhancing items to both attract romantic partners and create a favorable impression of themselves in the workplace, as both strategies can help women become secure financially" (p. 1). Both papers are consistent with the overall notion that individuals are strongly attuned to the state of the economy, with profound influences for basic psychological functioning, spanning from how people understand causality to how they think about beauty, mating, and survival.…”