Abstract
The purpose of this study was to test if the attractiveness of an individual affected how other individuals viewed them on intelligence, likeability, and honesty. Thirty-eight college students from a psychology research methods course were shown the black and white yearbook photographs of ten stimuli individuals and asked to rate them on attractiveness, intelligence, likeability, and honesty. A positive correlation was expected between attractiveness and the other three variables. Results showed that, while the attractiveness of the stimuli individuals was not significantly related to the ratings of assumed intelligence or honesty, the attractiveness of the stimuli individuals did significantly relate to the ratings of assumed likeability. This suggests that individuals expect attractive people to be more likeable than other individuals.

Effects of Attractiveness on Assumed Characteristics
Physical appearance is the most apparent personal characteristic that individuals possess. Therefore, it is not surprising that, when individuals do not have much information on others, they look to physical appearance to base their predictions on. Much research indicates that an attractive physical appearance positively impacts the presumed characteristics of an individual while an unattractive physical appearance negatively impacts presumed characteristics. Dion, Berscheid, and Walster’s (1972) study involved showing participants photographs of stimuli individuals, and the participants rated them on the amount of their perceived socially desirable traits and on the quality of life they were thought to have. Results showed that the attractive stimuli individuals were rated as having more socially desirable skills and a higher quality of life than the unattractive stimuli individuals. In Dion’s (1972) study where adults were shown accounts of transgressions supposedly committed by children, the results show that subjects viewed severe transgressions less negatively when they were committed by attractive children and more negatively when committed by unattractive children. Also, subjects believed that the transgressions were less likely to have been committed in the past and/or be repeated in the future when the child was attractive and more likely to have been committed in the past and/or be repeated in the future when the child was unattractive. While many characteristics other than physical appearance could influence the rating of assumed characteristics, several studies show that attractiveness still plays a main role in the judgment of individuals. Langlois and Stephan (1977) found that when Anglo, African-American, and Mexican-American children were shown pictures of other children of their race and the other two races, they rated the stimuli children more favorably based on their attractiveness as opposed to their race. Also, Efran (1974) reported that the majority of surveyed individuals felt that a jury’s decision should be influenced by a defendant’s character and past behavior as opposed to their physical appearance. However, the study jury showed that physically attractive defendants were evaluated with less certainty of guilt and were recommended for less severe punishments than were unattractive defendants.
This study differs from the above-mentioned ones as it had participants rate photographs on four specific attributes: attractiveness, intelligence, likeability, and honesty. The present study evaluated if the hypothesis that participant’s ratings of intelligence, likeability, and honesty would correlate significantly and positively with the ratings of attractiveness.
Methods
Participants
Thirty-eight college students enrolled in a psychology research methods course at Bowling Green State University, OH participated as part of a class project.
Instruments
A television and VCR played a videotape that showed black and white yearbook photographs of two seniors (one male, one female) from a high school on Long Island, NY and eight college seniors (four male, four female) from SUNY at Stony Brook. The high school yearbook was from 1979; the college yearbook was from 1983.
Procedure
A male instructor informed the classroom of participants that they would be shown the photographs twice, for ten seconds during the preview session and then for thirty seconds during the ratings session. Participants used a seven-point scale to rate the faces on intelligence, likeability, attractiveness, and honesty. After the ratings session, the instructor collected the data from participants by means of passing around a table in which students placed marks in the appropriate boxes for their ratings.
Results
The ratings for the attributes attractiveness, intelligence, likeability, and honesty are presented in Table 1. A Pearson correlation was first run to test the relations between attractiveness and intelligence, likeability, and honesty. The results are: intelligence and attractiveness r(8)= .025, p>.05 were not significantly related, likeability and attractiveness r(8)= .689, p<.05 were significantly related, honesty and attractiveness r(8)= .017, p>.05 were not significantly related. A Spearman correlation was run also to test the relations between attractiveness and intelligence, likeability, and honesty. The results were as follow: intelligence and attractiveness rho(8)= .094, p>.05 were not significantly related, likeability and attractiveness rho(8)= .565, p>.05 were not significantly related, honesty and attractiveness rho(8)= -.079, p>.05 were not significantly related. The results of the Spearman agreed with the Pearson in the fact that significant relationships between attractiveness and intelligence as well as attractiveness and honesty were not found. The Pearson did show a significant positive relationship between attractiveness and likeability while the Spearman did not. A scatter plot was made for the likeability and attractiveness ratings (Figure 1), in order to look for nonlinear relations. Figure 1 shows a positive linear relation. Therefore, despite the Spearman correlation, other calculations suggest a significant relationship between likeability and attractiveness. Scatter plots were also made to look for nonlinear relations between attractiveness and intelligence (Figure 2) as well as attractiveness and honesty (Figure 3). Figure 2 revealed no significant relationship between attractiveness and intelligence. Figure 3 showed a slightly U-shaped relationship between attractiveness and honesty. Finally, Table 2 shows the number of times each face was rated on each attribute. As mentioned earlier, thirty-eight students rated each face once on each attribute; but due to way the data was collected, several errors occurred. They included participants placing tally marks in the wrong boxes, missing boxes, or mistakenly placing more than once tally mark in boxes. However, no face rating of any attribute varied severely; all faces were rated between thirty-seven and forty-three times, relatively close to the original thirty-eight.
Discussion
The present analysis confirms that the attractiveness of individuals positively impacts how others view them. The results of the calculations show a positive significant relationship between attractiveness and likeability; this is shown in the Pearson, but not in the Spearman. A possible reason for this may be that the medians of the ratings do not accurately describe the ranges of ratings. Surprisingly, there was no correlation between how attractive an individual was and how intelligent they were rated. This was not consistent with the research hypothesis. It is not known whether the U-shaped curve in Figure 3 shows an actual nonlinear relationship between attractiveness and honesty, or if it exists by chance. Further studies testing the relationship between attractiveness and honesty would need to be done. Since having the participants share a table in which to list their ratings resulted in tallying errors, participants in future studies should individually fill out ranking sheets, and those then would be collected and tallied by a researcher. Still, the data collected from this study is consistent with Dion, et al. (1972); the attractiveness of an individual positively impacted the assumed characteristics of likeability, which is deemed socially important and desirable. Our results are also consistent with Efran (1974) and Dion (1972); the lower the ratings of attractiveness, the less likely the stimuli individuals were to be considered likeable.
While much research has been done on finding out if attractiveness affects other’s perceptions, further research should be done to find out why attractive individuals are viewed as more positively that average and unattractive individuals. There could be many causes; for example, the media is known for glamorizing attractive individuals. It would not be surprising if research done on television or movies would show that many programs’ leading roles are filled by attractive individuals whose characters possess socially desirable characteristics. Also, more research needs to be done to show exactly which assumed characteristics are affected by attractiveness. Only by doing future research will it become apparent as to what and why attractiveness influences the way individuals perceive others.


References

Dion, K.K. (1972). Physical attractiveness and evaluation of children’s transgressions.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 207-213.
Dion, K.K, Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 285-290.
Efran, M.G. (1974). The effect of physical appearance on the judgment of guilt, interpersonal attraction, and severity of recommended punishment in a simulated jury task. Journal of Research in Personality, 8, 45-54.
Langlois, J.H., & Stephan, C. (1977). The effects of physical attractiveness and ethnicity on children’s behavioral attributions and peer preferences. Child development, 48, 1694-1698.

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