(HOW MUCH) DO LOOKS MATTER?

Throughout my three and a half years of grad school, I learned (and then promptly forgot) quite a bit. But one tidbit stood out because I didn’t want it to be true. Simply put, research supports that folks tend to like attractive people more. This can be tied to a phenomenon called the Halo Effect, which is sometimes referred to as the physical attractive stereotype. It’s a common cognitive bias where if someone has one positive trait—like good looks—we are more likely to see them positively in all areas. Basically, our brains go, Oh, you’re pretty. You must also be smart, nice and athletic, too!

I was upset to hear just how much people’s looks impact how others perceive them because I feel like society has been having a reckoning with physical appearance in recent years. Fashion trends have become more casual and it’s now pretty standard, at least in the U.S., to go to the store looking completely disheveled and not have anything horrible happen to you as a result. I don’t have to curl my hair or put a dress on before a meeting like women of yesteryear. And the body positivity/neutrality movement has challenged us to look beyond the Western beauty standards and focus on other things. Like, you know, what’s on the inside.

But it turns out, people’s minds really are as bad as we all feared in the early aughts. Conventional physical attractiveness isn’t just a small additive in a complex world. It can shape a person’s entire life experience for the better. Which has made me wonder, should I attend to my looks in the same way I attend to everything else that might increase my career success? Or is it on all of us to try to change our biases so looks don’t actually matter as much? Even if that takes a few decades/might never happen.