Despite the widely accepted
‘What is beautiful is good’ stereotype, our findings suggest that the beautiful
strive for conformity rather than independence, and for self-promotion rather
than tolerance,” writes a research team led by Lihi Segal-Caspi of the Open
University of Israel.
In other words, the
positive traits we attribute to good-looking people are simply a matter of
stereotyping. But this study, published in the journal Psychological
Science, suggests the unusually attractive have a distinct set of
values—and they’re not, well, pretty.
The experiment featured 236 university students (mean age 29), all of whom completed detailed questionnaires designed to uncover their personality traits and deeply held values. Half the participants—118 women—were then videotaped for roughly one minute apiece as they walked around a table and read a weather forecast while looking into the camera.
The other 118 (a mixed group, 59 percent female and 41 percent male) subsequently watched the tapes. They rated each woman for attractiveness (passing judgment on her body, voice, degree of refinement and stylishness of dress), and offered their perception of her traits and values.
In line with prior research, “perceiving a target as physically attractive was associated with perceiving her as agreeable, open to experience, extroverted, conscientious and emotionally stable,” the researchers write. In contrast, on their self-assessment forms, attractive and less-attractive women did not significantly differ on these traits.
However, attractive and less-attractive women did differ on their self-reported values. “Attractiveness correlated with values that express the motivation to conform and submit to social expectations,” the researchers write, “and with values that express a focus on self-promotion rather than on concern for others.”
This is, of course, one small sample from one small country, but the results make intuitive sense. If beautiful people get doted on from a young age, they surely get the sense that society values them highly; it follows that they’d be more likely to be conformists than rebels.
Similarly, a focus on self-promotion as opposed to empathy may suggest narcissism—but isn’t being treated as special the perfect incubator for such an attitude?
