Are Good-Looking People Nicer? Study Says…

Are Good-Looking People Nicer? Study Says…

Are you perfect? Me neither. In an era of gob-wads of botox and plastic surgery coupled with political turmoil, it could be good to remember this.

Why? Here’s the deal. Of course, we should never judge a book by its cover, or a woman by her hair and makeup. Inevitably, however, we often do.

If you don’t think so, this video experiment done by Unicef might change your mind. Maybe you’re open-minded but others, not so much. The video was created as a social experiment and produced in the country of Georgia, to show that poor children need much more help than we are giving them.

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It shows how strangers reacted negatively to what looked like an abandoned child in dirty clothing in the streets, yet positively to the same child, when she was dressed nicely.

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(photo credit: www.pixabay.com)

Adults told the poor, dirty child to ‘go away’, and offered to help the nicely dressed child. Nice people we adults are.

Anyways, we’re kind of nasty. And we like clean, wealthy looks. In fact, we gravitate so much towards good-looking people that we make them into multi-million dollar movie stars and even vote the fantabulous-looking into office.

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But is it scientifically wise? New research is taking a look at the issue.

Researchers who published a recent study in Psychological Science took a behind-the-scenes look at the values of good-looking women, and the traits that we assign to them.

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(photo credit: www.pixabay.com)

The researchers did their study because they wanted to know if the values of a woman who is perceived by her community to be good-looking are in line with the traits that the public attributes to these same good-looks.

In the study, researchers recruited 118 university students to serve as good-looking “targets”. Others were members of the public who were “judges.”

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The targets completed surveys about their own values and personality traits. What kind of person would they describe themselves to be?

The good-looking targets were then videotaped doing some simple things. They entered a room, walked around a table looking at the camera, read a weather forecast, and then left the room.

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(photo credit: www.pixabay.com)

The ‘judges’ viewed these women on tape and were asked to evaluate them. They rated the women’s attractiveness, along with other physical attributes. The judges also then evaluated what kind of personality traits and values each woman would probably have.

As you might expect, the women who were rated as being most attractive were seen as having more desirable personalities. Judges guessed that these women were extroverts, open to new experiences, and conscientious of others. They were also thought to value achievement more than less attractive women.

But in reality, the facts were different. When the attractive women were surveyed on their own values, here’s what came up. The good-looking women might have been nice on the surface, but they were more likely to support values focused on conformity and submission to social expectations, as well as believing strongly in self-promotion.

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(photo credit: www.pixabay.com)

What’s the result? If you vote for someone because they’re good-looking and they have a beautiful family just remember: they might not approve of you. You might not actually fit the mold.

If you don’t fit into the social expectations they have, you could be toast. Not to sound all doomsday-ish, but this seems to be the case.

And on top of this, the good-looking winner may not be concerned with your welfare at all. It’s more likely that they ran for your vote in order to win. Just to win, and not much more.

Beyond this, there might not be that much inclusion, or attention to the lives of others.

Thank you, social science, for reminding us. All that glitters is not necessarily gold.

Photo credit: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

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