As shown in the article by Maestripieri et al., being beautiful is advantageous in many realms of life, from social interactions to romantic relationships, from employment opportunities to economic success. On the other hand, it is also well documented that unattractive people are often discriminated against. “Lookism” can be defined as discrimination against people considered physically unattractive according to widespread psychobiological and/or social standards.
Although lookist practices are wide and pervasive, lookism is often dismissed by appealing to the conventional wisdom that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” If there is no agreement about who is beautiful and who is not, so the argument goes, then no one can systematically be discriminated against, and lookism is not “real.” There are, of course, undeniable subjective differences in aesthetic preferences, and the same feature may be considered attractive by a certain society and unattractive by a different one. However, people from different geographic areas and/or historical periods are found to mostly agree about whom they find beautiful/ugly, and they treat more favorably the attractive and discriminate against the unattractive. So, insofar as the standard for (un)attractiveness is (at least) an inter-subjective standard, if not an objective one, lookism is a real problem.
Law scholar Deborah Rhode estimates that “anywhere from 12 to 16 percent of workers believe that they have been subject to such bias, a percentage that is in the same vicinity, or greater, than those reporting gender, racial, ethnic, age, or religious prejudice” (Rhode Reference Rhode2010, p. 9). Economist Daniel Hamermesh suggests that African American men's earning disadvantage is similar to the disadvantage experienced by unattractive men, and that, over a lifetime, a below average–looking man earns $230,000 less than an attractive one (2011). Quite unsurprisingly, unattractive people have been found to be less happy than attractive ones (Hamermesh & Abrevaya Reference Hamermesh and Abrevaya2013).
Maestripieri et al. argue that prosocial biases in favor of beauty are more likely because of sexual motives than other motives, such as for example motives related to the well-known “what is beautiful is good” bias, whereby we tend to attribute positive personality traits to attractive people (Dion et al. Reference Dion, Berscheid and Walster1972) (in fairy tales, such a tendency is emphasized, and very often the villain is portrayed as extremely unattractive).
If Maestripieri et al. are right in their interpretation of the evolutionary origin of lookism in the workplace, and mating motives are at the core of this form of discrimination, then we have an interesting starting point for devising strategies to tackle the issue of discrimination against the unattractive.
Societal change is often supported by legal change, as testified by the case of discrimination against disabled people, black people, women, and homosexuals. Rhode suggests that the law should extend protection to people discriminated against for their appearance; for example, the scope of anti-discriminatory legislation already in use could be broadened so as to protect the unattractive. A few cities and districts have already attempted to give protection to victims of lookism: Michigan, District of Columbia, Howard County, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Madison, and Urbana (Rhode Reference Rhode2009).
Legal measures may have a broad positive effect in terms of giving visibility to a discriminatory practice and enabling unattractive people to have equal opportunities. The simple fact of officially acknowledging that lookism is a problem puts us in a better position to develop strategies to overcome it.
One field where acknowledging the problem can have beneficial effects is the job market. Job committees should start taking into account such pervasive biasing elements. For example, they could develop strategies to avoid that mating preferences of a committee member penalize the least attractive candidate of the opposite sex and/or the most attractive candidate of the same sex (according to the target article, heterosexual individuals tend to have negative biases toward attractive people of their same sex because they are potential rivals). Job interviews could be conducted via phone and not in person, or each committee member's evaluation of each candidate could be adjusted for the biases related to gender and to level of attractiveness. As far as job promotions are concerned (external, when possible) review of anonymized reports of the employees' achievements could help in assessing their merits in a more objective way.
At the level of the public health system, one strategy that could be deployed to help a person who has been formally recognized as a victim of lookism is to provide her with benefits for cosmetic interventions (from makeup classes to cosmetic surgery).
The economist Hamermesh notes that insurance companies compensate people for prospective economic loss when their facial features are negatively affected by events such as accidents and assaults; on a similar basis, we could also consider compensating people for unattractiveness- related economic loss (Hamermesh Reference Hamermesh2011).
Some of the solutions I have briefly sketched would require the unattractive person to obtain an “unattractiveness certificate.” In this way, they would have objective grounds on which to claim a right to be protected by anti-discriminatory measures. Admittedly, precise evaluation of degrees of unattractiveness would be an extremely difficult task. Moreover, it is likely that people would not feel comfortable undergoing an assessment of their appearance. However, some people have already sued their employers for discriminatory practices based on looks (Corbett Reference Corbett2007), and even if the majority of people would not use legal measures, the fact that the law prohibits lookist practices could still be a useful deterrent.
At the same time, however, society as a whole should develop broader and more inclusive paradigms of beauty. Although evolution shaped some of our aesthetic preferences, it is also true that economic, social, and historical factors have contributed to determining the current extremely narrow paradigm of beauty.
It is important to conduct further research to understand the mechanisms at the origin of lookism. Although lookism is often considered a politically incorrect topic to discuss, it is only by learning more about it that we will be able to find ways to deal with such a phenomenon and, we hope, alleviate its negative impact.
As shown in the article by Maestripieri et al., being beautiful is advantageous in many realms of life, from social interactions to romantic relationships, from employment opportunities to economic success. On the other hand, it is also well documented that unattractive people are often discriminated against. “Lookism” can be defined as discrimination against people considered physically unattractive according to widespread psychobiological and/or social standards.
Although lookist practices are wide and pervasive, lookism is often dismissed by appealing to the conventional wisdom that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” If there is no agreement about who is beautiful and who is not, so the argument goes, then no one can systematically be discriminated against, and lookism is not “real.” There are, of course, undeniable subjective differences in aesthetic preferences, and the same feature may be considered attractive by a certain society and unattractive by a different one. However, people from different geographic areas and/or historical periods are found to mostly agree about whom they find beautiful/ugly, and they treat more favorably the attractive and discriminate against the unattractive. So, insofar as the standard for (un)attractiveness is (at least) an inter-subjective standard, if not an objective one, lookism is a real problem.
Law scholar Deborah Rhode estimates that “anywhere from 12 to 16 percent of workers believe that they have been subject to such bias, a percentage that is in the same vicinity, or greater, than those reporting gender, racial, ethnic, age, or religious prejudice” (Rhode Reference Rhode2010, p. 9). Economist Daniel Hamermesh suggests that African American men's earning disadvantage is similar to the disadvantage experienced by unattractive men, and that, over a lifetime, a below average–looking man earns $230,000 less than an attractive one (2011). Quite unsurprisingly, unattractive people have been found to be less happy than attractive ones (Hamermesh & Abrevaya Reference Hamermesh and Abrevaya2013).
Maestripieri et al. argue that prosocial biases in favor of beauty are more likely because of sexual motives than other motives, such as for example motives related to the well-known “what is beautiful is good” bias, whereby we tend to attribute positive personality traits to attractive people (Dion et al. Reference Dion, Berscheid and Walster1972) (in fairy tales, such a tendency is emphasized, and very often the villain is portrayed as extremely unattractive).
If Maestripieri et al. are right in their interpretation of the evolutionary origin of lookism in the workplace, and mating motives are at the core of this form of discrimination, then we have an interesting starting point for devising strategies to tackle the issue of discrimination against the unattractive.
Societal change is often supported by legal change, as testified by the case of discrimination against disabled people, black people, women, and homosexuals. Rhode suggests that the law should extend protection to people discriminated against for their appearance; for example, the scope of anti-discriminatory legislation already in use could be broadened so as to protect the unattractive. A few cities and districts have already attempted to give protection to victims of lookism: Michigan, District of Columbia, Howard County, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Madison, and Urbana (Rhode Reference Rhode2009).
Legal measures may have a broad positive effect in terms of giving visibility to a discriminatory practice and enabling unattractive people to have equal opportunities. The simple fact of officially acknowledging that lookism is a problem puts us in a better position to develop strategies to overcome it.
One field where acknowledging the problem can have beneficial effects is the job market. Job committees should start taking into account such pervasive biasing elements. For example, they could develop strategies to avoid that mating preferences of a committee member penalize the least attractive candidate of the opposite sex and/or the most attractive candidate of the same sex (according to the target article, heterosexual individuals tend to have negative biases toward attractive people of their same sex because they are potential rivals). Job interviews could be conducted via phone and not in person, or each committee member's evaluation of each candidate could be adjusted for the biases related to gender and to level of attractiveness. As far as job promotions are concerned (external, when possible) review of anonymized reports of the employees' achievements could help in assessing their merits in a more objective way.
At the level of the public health system, one strategy that could be deployed to help a person who has been formally recognized as a victim of lookism is to provide her with benefits for cosmetic interventions (from makeup classes to cosmetic surgery).
The economist Hamermesh notes that insurance companies compensate people for prospective economic loss when their facial features are negatively affected by events such as accidents and assaults; on a similar basis, we could also consider compensating people for unattractiveness- related economic loss (Hamermesh Reference Hamermesh2011).
Some of the solutions I have briefly sketched would require the unattractive person to obtain an “unattractiveness certificate.” In this way, they would have objective grounds on which to claim a right to be protected by anti-discriminatory measures. Admittedly, precise evaluation of degrees of unattractiveness would be an extremely difficult task. Moreover, it is likely that people would not feel comfortable undergoing an assessment of their appearance. However, some people have already sued their employers for discriminatory practices based on looks (Corbett Reference Corbett2007), and even if the majority of people would not use legal measures, the fact that the law prohibits lookist practices could still be a useful deterrent.
At the same time, however, society as a whole should develop broader and more inclusive paradigms of beauty. Although evolution shaped some of our aesthetic preferences, it is also true that economic, social, and historical factors have contributed to determining the current extremely narrow paradigm of beauty.
It is important to conduct further research to understand the mechanisms at the origin of lookism. Although lookism is often considered a politically incorrect topic to discuss, it is only by learning more about it that we will be able to find ways to deal with such a phenomenon and, we hope, alleviate its negative impact.