The Psychology Behind Pretty Privilege
- Science Holic
- Jul 1
- 4 min read
Author: Lillian Dong
Editor: Oscar Chen
Artist: Emily Hu
Socioeconomic status, health, gender, and race are all widely accepted as characteristics decided for an individual at birth; what about beauty? Pretty privilege is the societal bias that favors conventionally attractive people. You may already be familiar with this idea through common tropes such as pretty girls being bought drinks at a bar or the ultimate makeover that brings popularity to social outcasts. However, the true effects of this bias may extend far beyond just small favors from strangers.
Economics professor Galina Hale discovered in her research that there is a strong correlation between appearance and career outcomes. Within the field of economics in academia, a labor market that supposedly ranks based on merit, attractive individuals are more likely to be placed in high-ranking PhD institutions and land better jobs. Attractive economists display more success in research output, with more citations per publication on average. Moreover, there was no association between attractiveness and the number of papers produced, debunking the idea that attractiveness correlates with higher effort rather than success.
More formally, these findings result from the halo effect, otherwise known as the physical attractiveness stereotype. The halo effect states that when an individual is perceived positively in one aspect, such as physical attractiveness, this positive perception tends to spill over onto other traits, including intelligence and personality. These neural connections are identical to how our brains process and create stereotypes, which has already generated a vast amount of research. A study from NYU utilized fMRIs — a specialized form of MRI — that measure blood flow in the brain, rather than just taking pictures, to observe real-time brain function. This reveals how humans associate certain people with positive or negative attributions just at a glance. This activity is found in the fusiform cortex, a region of the brain’s visual system specifically tasked with processing faces. In the study, when subjects were shown neutral or happy faces of black males, the neural activation patterns in their brains often matched those that appeared when they were shown objectively angry faces. Even when subjects consciously altered their choice of whether the face was “happy” or “angry”, these fMRIs could detect unconscious biases and stereotypes. Whether on purpose or not, your brain likely already connects physical attraction to friendliness or intelligence before you even get to know the person.
Our brains are constantly trying to support our biases, even when faced with a lack of evidence. The University of Wisconsin-Madison found that stereotypes persist even after individuals receive immediate feedback. In an experiment that observed two groups, one with feedback and one without, subjects tried to guess whether the men in social media profiles were gay or straight. The group with feedback would not stereotype less when they were incorrect; rather, they stereotyped more when their assumptions were proven true. However, the group without feedback continued to stereotype more and more despite the lack of confirmation. In both cases, learning patterns showed that people only reinforce their biases, regardless of the input. William Cox, scientist at the University of Wisconsin, explains that when our brain’s predictions are confirmed, a reward process provides a chemical release, which encourages previous assumptions but ignores any contrary evidence. The same process occurs with beauty: the brain considers situations that support the stereotypes made to be true and all other situations as outliers.
Our brains are obsessed with categories and heuristics, which is exactly why we must focus on checking our assumptions in a world that increasingly values beauty. A prime example of this infatuation with beauty is the TikTok trend in May, which erupted from the controversy surrounding a girl discouraging and insulting interracial relationships. While the internet did fight against this ideology, the vast majority and the most viral of videos always discredited her by focusing on a mixed woman’s beauty, as if the primary justification for an interracial couple was the appearance of their child. From twisting social issues into beauty pageants to the phrase “pretty girls don’t judge,” social media more often than not directly perpetuates the halo effect. The consequences of this are already prevalent. With body image issues showing a strong correlation to social media use, teenagers are worried more than ever about their looks. To remove the idea of attractiveness from self-worth, we must first recognize and lessen the physical attractiveness stereotyping that exists in all of us. Pretty privilege exists, but it is your choice whether or not to fall for it.
Citations:
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