The Effects of Physical Attractiveness and Sex-Role Stereotyping on Peer Performance Evaluations

Each of 216 female and 72 male college students read an essay that supposedly had been written by either a male or a female college freshman on a topic that was either masculine, feminine, or neuter. Photographs attached to the essays were used to create physically attractive and unattractive conditions. Photographs were omitted in the physically anonymous condition, Statistical analyses on six performance variables indicated that physical attractiveness enhanced some evaluations of performance for both male and female essayists in accordance with the what-is-beautiful- is-good stereotype. For male essayists, the attractiveness effect occurred on all essay topics regardless of their sex-typing. For female essayists, the effect was more prominent on neuter and feminine than on masculine topics. Attractiveness also affected causal attributions of essayists' failure to perform better, Contrary to prediction, sex-role stereotyping did not significantly affect performance evaluations.