Stereotype Directionality and Attractiveness Stereotyping

In their foundational study, Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) dubbed the attribution of positive attributes to attractive persons as the "beauty-is-good" stereotype. Since then, the stereotyping literature has accumulated a wealth of evidence demonstrating the differential evaluation and treatment of handsome and unattractive persons, but it remains unclear whether being pretty or unattractive is a benefit or a cost. Two research compared positive and negative attribute evaluations for medium vs. low and medium vs. high attractive faces to determine the direction of beauty stereotyping. Overall, the results for adults (Experiment 1) and children (Experiment 2) imply that unattractiveness is a disadvantage most of the time, which is consistent with negativity bias (e.g., Rozin & Royzman, 2001) but contradicts the "beauty-is-good" adage.

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