Good-looking women are more likely to be submissive and conformist, a Hebrew University study has found.
The research, done in conjunction with the Open University, hypothesised that women are judged by what they look like. That means that women who are judged to be attractive should theoretically also be perceived as having socially desirable personality traits.
One hundred and eighteen women were filmed walking into a room, walking around the camera, and then reading a weather forecast.
The same number of ‘judges’, who were either male or female, were then each shown the video of one subject and asked to give a physical attractiveness rating, as well as what they believed the subject’s personality traits to be.
The psychologists’ hypothesis proved correct: good-looking women were seen as conscientious, extroverted and open to new experiences.
However, the 118 women in the study also reported what their own values were, with surprising results. The women who were perceived as attractive said they valued conformity, self-promotion and submission to social expectations, rather than independence and tolerance.
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