What Is Beautiful Is Good and More Accurately Understood

TLDR

The study investigates whether physical attractiveness influences both positive and accurate judgments of others. Participants engaged in brief, round‑robin interactions, and researchers measured how attractiveness affected normative accuracy of impressions. Results show that physically attractive individuals receive more positive and more accurate impressions, with accuracy extending to both normative and unique trait judgments, and that perceivers’ own attractiveness impressions moderate these effects.

Abstract

Beautiful people are seen more positively than others, but are they also seen more accurately? In a round-robin design in which previously unacquainted individuals met for 3 min, results were consistent with the “beautiful is good” stereotype: More physically attractive individuals were viewed with greater normative accuracy; that is, they were viewed more in line with the highly desirable normative profile. Notably, more physically attractive targets were viewed more in line with their unique self-reported personality traits, that is, with greater distinctive accuracy. Further analyses revealed that both positivity and accuracy were to some extent in the eye of the beholder: Perceivers’ idiosyncratic impressions of a target’s attractiveness were also positively related to the positivity and accuracy of impressions. Overall, people do judge a book by its cover, but a beautiful cover prompts a closer reading, leading more physically attractive people to be seen both more positively and more accurately.