美丽有错吗

VAN LEEUWEN AND MACRAEImplicit Person Perception IS BEAUTIFUL ALWAYS GOOD? IMPLICIT BENEFITS OF FACIAL ATTRACTIVENESS Matthijs L. van Leeuwen University of Nijmegen C. Neil Macrae Dartmouth College A theme that emerges in life is that it is advantageous to be good looking. Cor- roborating this observation, an expansive literature has documented the bene- fits of facial attractiveness on a range of explicit measures. What is not yet known, however, is whether this association between beauty and positivity also exerts an implicit influence on people’s responses. That is, does the “beau- tiful is good” stereotype operate when attention is not explicitly directed to a person’s appearance? Using a modified Stroop task, we explored this issue in the current investigation. The results revealed that facial stereotypes do indeed exert an automatic influence on people’s responses, an effect that is elicited by targets of either sex and displayed by both male and female respondents. In ad- dition, female faces elicited positive evaluative responses (i.e., fe- male–positivity effect). We consider the implications of these findings for issues in person perception. It is very fashionable for good–looking ladies to say how hard it is to be beautiful, but that’s not true. There are times when it depresses and bothers me to see just how easy things are made for a beautiful woman. (Catherine Deneuve,1994) A theme that emerges early in life is that it pays to be good looking. Socialized on a diet of Hollywood fare, one quickly learns that attrac- tive individuals live in elegant houses, drive expensive cars, and lead 637 Social Cognition, Vol. 22, No. 6, 2004, pp. 637-649 We would like to thank Rick van Baaren, Jasmin Cloutier, and Malia Mason for their as- sistance and helpful comments. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Matthijs Lars van Leeuwen, Department of Social Psychology, University of Nijmegen, PO Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands; E-mail: MLvanLeeuwen@student.ru.nl. unblemished and successful lives. Put simply, that which is beautiful is also seemingly healthy, wealthy, and wise (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972). Tempting though it may be to source this belief to the influence of current cultural forces, it turns out that people have equated beauty with the possession of positive qualities for centu- ries. Indeed, even the ancient Greeks subscribed to such a view. It is only in relatively recent times, however, that researchers have charted the extent and implications of the “beautiful is good” stereo- type for people’s treatment of others (see Eagly, 1987; Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991; Langlois et al., 2000; Zebrowitz, 1997). From personality assessments and lifestyle evaluations to hir- ing decisions and salary raises, the message that emerges in this work is unequivocal—people are more favorable in their appraisal of attractive than unattractive individuals. As Langlois et al. (2000) have summarized, “The effects of facial attractiveness are robust and pandemic . . . attractiveness is a significant advantage for both children and adults in almost every domain of judgment, treatment, and behavior” (p. 404). That good things are perceived to go together is beyond debate; what remains open to empirical investigation, however, is how this belief affects people’s behavior. For example, is the conviction that a beautiful person is smart, poised, and successful grounded in con- scious deliberation, or does this evaluative association have less con- templative roots, residing instead in the unobservable workings of the unconscious mind (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999)? This latter possi- bility is theoretically important because, if true, it suggests that the “beautiful is good” stereotype may shape people’s evaluations of others in a covert (i.e., automatic) manner (Bargh, 1997). Guided by the supposition that a great deal of social action is triggered by in- scrutable mental operations, recent social–cognitive research has mapped the automaticity of everyday life (see Bargh, 1997; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). As a result of this en- deavor, outcomes that were previously thought to be under people’s voluntary control are now believed to be driven by implicit cognitive operations. The stereotype–related products of the person percep- tion process are a case in point (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000). In the absence of any conscious intention to view people in a stereotypic manner, or indeed the cognizance that such an influence may be op- erating, perceivers have been shown to construe others in a 638 VAN LEEUWEN AND MACRAE category–based manner (Bargh, 1999; Blair, 2002; Bodenhausen & Macrae, 1998; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Might then the evaluative correlates of facial attractiveness also exert an implicit influence on people’s responses? Moreover, if oper- ating, is such an effect: (a) bidirectional (i.e., attractive is good, unat- tractive is bad); (b) elicited by targets of either sex; and (c) demonstrated by both men and women alike (Langlois et al. 2000)? Although researchers have yet to undertake a direct examination of the implicit origins of the “beautiful is good” stereotype, inspection of the broad–ranging literature on this topic suggests that the linkage between facial attractiveness and positivity (or negativity) may in- deed operate at such a level (Eagly et al., 1991; Langlois et al., 2000; Zebrowitz, 1997). For example, when people have instructed to eval- uate attractive or unattractive individuals along a particular judg- mental dimension (e.g., health, wealth, happiness), it seems unlikely that their responses reflect the intentional application of the “beauti- ful is good” stereotype. Rather, this influence likely operates at an implicit (i.e., unintentional) level. A similar message can be extracted from studies in developmental psychology. At the age of only 12 months, infants are more likely to approach and display positive af- fect toward an attractive than a less attractive female stranger (Langlois, Roggman, & Rieser–Danner, 1990), a nonverbal effect that is unlikely to rely on deliberative processing. It would appear, therefore, that facial stereotypes may frequently guide people’s outputs in a covert manner. But just how robust and pervasive is the linkage between facial at- tractiveness and positivity? Although perceivers may not intend to apply facial stereotypes when they appraise others, in the available research to date, their attention has nevertheless been directed to- wards targets’ facial features through the requirement to provide a judgment or evaluation of these individuals. This therefore raises an interesting empirical question. How important is the explicit direc- tion of attention to a person’s face in the elicitation of implicit halo ef- fects? For example, would the association between attractiveness and positivity emerge in task settings that neither direct attention to a target’s face nor require an explicit evaluation of the person? Using a picture– word word文档格式规范word作业纸小票打印word模板word简历模板免费word简历 version of the Stroop task (Stroop, 1935), we explored this issue in the current investigation. This paradigm provides a means of assessing the influence of irrelevant stimuli on people’s re- sponses (see De Fockert, Rees, Frith, & Lavie, 2001; Jenkins, Lavie, & IMPLICIT PERSON PERCEPTION 639 Driver, 2003; Lavie, Ro, & Russell, 2003); hence, it enabled us to explore the implicit impact of facial stereotypes on response generation. Participants (male and female) were presented with valenced words embedded in either attractive or unattractive faces, and their task was to make a response to each verbal stimulus (i.e., is the word positive or negative in implication?). Of critical interest were partici- pants’ responses on mismatching trials—that is, trials in which the word and face belonged to competing evaluative categories (e.g., negative word/attractive face). If the “beautiful is good” stereotype is extracted from competing (but task–irrelevant) facial stimuli, then reactions to words of the opposite valence should be impaired via re- sponse competition (Jenkins et al., 2003). In this way, mismatch inter- ference can be used to index the implicit influence of facial stereotypes on people’s responses. METHOD PARTICIPANTS AND DESIGN Thirty–six undergraduates (20 women and 16 men) from Dartmouth College completed the experiment for additional course credit. The experiment had a 2 (face type: attractive or unattractive) × 2 (sex of target: male or female) × 2 (word valence: positive or negative) re- peated measures design. STIMULUS MATERIALS AND PROCEDURE Participants arrived at the laboratory individually, were greeted by a male experimenter, and were seated facing the screen of an Apple Macintosh computer (IMac). The experimenter explained that the study comprised a word–classification task. In the center of the computer screen, a number of words would appear (e.g., summer, vomit). The task was simply to report, by means of a key press, whether each word was positive or negative in valence. The experi- menter also reported that each word would appear on a back- ground that was either a human face (i.e., experimental conditions) or an oval (i.e., baseline condition). Following previous work of this kind, participants were instructed to ignore the background stimuli (Jenkins et al., 2003). In total, 64 words appeared on the screen, 32 640 VAN LEEUWEN AND MACRAE positive words and 32 negative words (see Appendix 1). The words were taken from a set prepared by Bellezza, Greenwald, and Banaji (1986). Each word was paired with three backgrounds: a va- lence–matching face (attractive or unattractive), a valence–mis- matching face (attractive or unattractive), and a face–shaped oval. The stimulus faces were 64 greyscale files depicting 32 female faces and 32 male faces. The faces depicted targets in a frontal pose con- veying neutral facial expressions. Each file was standardized to 300 × 300 pixels and matched for brightness and contrast. The faces were selected on the basis of an earlier pilot study in which 13 independent participants (6 women and 7 men) rated the attractiveness (10–point scale) of a large sample of faces. From these ratings, 64 faces were se- lected for the experiment proper, 32 male faces (16 attractive and 16 unattractive, respective Ms: 7.13 vs. 3.22, p < .001) and 32 female faces (16 attractive and 16 unattractive, respective Ms: 8.25 vs. 3.01, p < .001). A greyscale oval was used to establish baseline performance on the word–classification task. The words were superimposed on each background using Adobe Photoshop (5.0). A standard font (Arial) and font size (20-point) was used. The words appeared at one of four pseudorandomized locations on the face: forehead, left cheek, right cheek, or chin. On each trial, a fixation cross appeared for 1,000 ms, followed by a word embedded in a background stimulus. The stimu- lus remained on the screen until participants made a response or 4,000 ms had elapsed. Participants were instructed to respond as quickly and accurately as possible. Each word was paired with the three backgrounds (i.e., matching–face, mismatching–face, and oval), giving a total of 192 experimental trials. The order of presenta- tion of the items was randomized, and the response key mappings (i.e., positive/negative or negative/positive) were counterbalanced across participants. The computer recorded the accuracy and latency of each response. On completion of the task, participants were debriefed and dismissed. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Median response times were calculated for each participant. Prelimi- nary analysis revealed no effect of the sex of participants on response times; consequently, the data were collapsed across this factor. Trials on which errors were made (3.7% of trials) were omitted from the sta- tistical analysis. The resulting data were submitted to a 2 (face type: attractive or unattractive) × 2 (sex of target: male or female) × 2 (word IMPLICIT PERSON PERCEPTION 641 642 VAN LEEUWEN AND MACRAE FIGURE 1. Median reaction times (ms) as a function of facial attractiveness (upper panel) and sex of target (lower panel). valence: positive or negative) repeated measures analysis of vari- ance. This revealed a significant face type × word valence interaction, F(1, 35) = 5.04, p < .03 (see Figure 1, upper panel). Simple effects anal- ysis showed that, for attractive faces, participants were slower to cat- egorize negative than positive words, F(1, 35) = 7.96, p < .008. In addition, responses to negative words were slowed when the items were embedded in attractive rather than unattractive faces, although this effect was only marginally significant, F(1, 35) = 3.53, p < .07. Comparable effects did not emerge for unattractive faces or positive words. Thus, the implicit effects of facial stereotypes are not bidirectional. Whereas attractive faces trigger a positive evaluative response, unattractive faces do not elicit a corresponding negative reaction. Interestingly, the analysis also revealed a significant sex of target × word valence interaction, F(1, 35) = 6.58, p < .02 (see Figure 1, lower panel). For female targets, participants were slower to classify nega- tive than positive words, F(1, 35) = 9.37, p < .004. In addition, re- sponses to negative words were impaired when the items were embedded in female rather than male faces, F(1, 35) = 6.53, p < .02. Comparable effects did not emerge for male targets or positive words. What this suggests is that, independent of facial attractive- ness, female targets are associated more strongly with positivity than their male counterparts (see also Rudman & Goodwin, 2004). This finding (albeit at the implicit level) replicates the general observation that, because of their frequent association with positive communal qualities (e.g., kind, gentle), women tend to be evaluated more favorably than men (Eagly, Mladinic, & Otto, 1991). GENERAL DISCUSSION Looking good clearly has its advantages. Corroborating previous re- search, the current inquiry demonstrated the advantages of facial at- tractiveness. Generally speaking, beauty guarantees a positive evaluation, whatever the explicit judgment of interest may be (Eagly et al., 1991; Langlois et al., 2000; Zebrowitz, 1997). Extending this work, the current findings demonstrated that stereotypes associated with facial attractiveness also influence behavior implicitly—that is, under conditions in which attention is neither directed to a person’s face nor an explicit appraisal of the individual is required (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). This therefore confirms that the evaluative corre- lates of facial attractiveness influence people’s responses even when IMPLICIT PERSON PERCEPTION 643 a face is an irrelevant aspect of the task at hand (Bargh, 1997). This ef- fect, moreover, is elicited by attractive targets of either sex and demonstrated by both male and female respondents alike. Interestingly, the observed effects of facial appearance on partici- pants’ responses were not bidirectional in nature. Although beauty was associated with positivity, a corresponding negative evaluation was not elicited by unattractive faces. This evaluative asymmetry may be attributed to a couple of factors. First, it is possible that the ef- fect reflects the depiction of attractive and unattractive individuals in the media and the influence this has on the strength of associative linkages in memory (Bargh, 1997). Because the predominant media portrayal is that beautiful people are good (rather than that unattrac- tive people are bad), one would perhaps expect this association to have the most pronounced effect on people’s reactions. Second, one may question the evaluative impact the unattractive faces exerted in the current inquiry. Inspection of Figure 1 reveals that these faces triggered a neutral evaluative response (i.e., equivalent reaction times for positive and negative words). It is possible that negative re- actions are triggered only by unattractive faces that are also consid- ered to be aversive or frightening to perceivers (e.g., disfigured faces). Because these stimuli were not included in the current investi- gation, it is therefore difficult to provide a definitive interpretation for the observed asymmetry in participants’ reactions. What is ap- parent, however, is that in the range of faces typically encountered in everyday life, only attractive exemplars trigger a clear–cut evaluative (i.e., positive) response. But why does the “beautiful is good” stereotype exist at all? Al- though beyond the scope of the current inquiry, it is worth noting that cultural forces play a pivotal role in the emergence of halo ef- fects in person perception (Eagly, 1987). According to Eagly et al. (1991), beliefs about physical appearance come from two sources: direct observation and cultural depictions of attractive and unat- tractive individuals. Daily experience (and an extensive literature) attests that good-looking people are more popular with their peers and are treated more favorably by others than their unattractive counterparts (Langlois et al., 2000). It is reasonable for perceivers to assume, therefore, that this favorable treatment likely derives not merely from the possession of good looks, but also from the owner- ship of other desirable attributes and qualities. Reinforcing this as- sumption are the cultural depictions of attractive and unattractive 644 VAN LEEUWEN AND MACRAE individuals to which perceivers are constantly exposed. Almost without exception (e.g., movies, advertisements, children’s sto- ries), beauty is associated with success, wealth, and happiness, whereas ugliness is characterized by the possession of unfavorable attributes. Little wonder, therefore, that these associations exert a profound influence on behavior, even when probed using implicit measures (see Rudman, 2004). In this way, we corroborate previous research documenting the linkage between groups or individuals high in social status and the automatic elicitation of positive attitudes (Jost, Pelham, & Carvallo, 2002; Rudman, Feinberg, & Fairchild, 2002). In addition to the observed effects of facial appearance on people’s responses, the current experiment also revealed a general fe- male–positivity effect. In particular, females were associated more strongly with positive than negative items, an effect that did not emerge for male targets. A similar bias has been reported by Rudman and Goodwin (2004) using the Implicit Association Test (IAT). They have speculated that people’s early socialization experiences may account for the emergence of this effect. In American society, women typically occupy the role of the primary caregiver, a state of affairs that may shape infants’ implicit reactions to male and female targets. Through positive emotional conditioning (Rudman, 2004), infants (both male and female) form stronger maternal than paternal bonds (Montague & Walker–Andrews, 2002), bonds that may shape their gender–based attitudes and responses to male and female targets in later life (i.e., female–positivity effect) Using a different measure of implicit attitudes, the current findings replicated Rudman and Goodwin’s (2004) findings, thereby lending further credibility to this viewpoint. In this respect, however, a potential limitation of the cur- rent experiment must be acknowledged. People of both sexes typi- cally report a greater liking for women than men because women are more likely to possess communal attributes such as warmth (Eagly & Mlandinic, 1994). Because several such items were included in the current list of positive words (see Appendix 1), it is possible that this stereotypic association may have driven the observed female–positivity effect (but see Rudman & Goodwin, 2004). Further research is required to clarify this