The Detrimental Effects of Men’s Concern About Appearing Positively Biased Toward Physically Attractive Women

Authors:

Abstract: Based on accountability research and the physical attractiveness paradigm, we investigated whether men, rather than women, would be motivated to control and suppress positive bias toward physically attractive opposite-sex individuals. We predicted this would occur when stimuli in one’s social environment trigger heightened concerns about being judged negatively for behaving in a biased manner. Experimental studies supported our predictions. When accountability was high (rather than low), men were more likely to engage in negative bias (Study 1), discrimination (Study 2), and social distancing (Study 3) toward physically attractive women. Our findings showed heightened concerns about being negatively judged (Studies 1 and 2) mediated our predicted effects. Accountability did not influence decisions made by women toward physically attractive men for any of the studies.

Track: DEI

Keywords: gender; bias; discrimination, diversity