CHANGE OF PERCEPTION

BASED ON ATTRACTIVENESS

20th June , 2016

CHANGE OF PERCEPTION BASED ON ATTRACTIVENESS
ARE ATTRACTIVE TREATED DIFFERENTLY?

Prepared for
Miss Rabeea Nawaz
Institute of Administrative Sciences, Punjab University

Prepared by

Khadija Ameen (15-BS-R-21)

Moazzma Iqbal (15-BS-R-35)

Sadaf Khurshid (15-BS-R-09)

Samia Younas (15-BS-R-46)

2 nd semester, Section A

June 20th, 2016

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page no

LIST OF TABLES ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 12, 16, 18

LIST OF CHARTS -------------------------------------------------------------------- 11, 15, 17

ABSTRACT ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ------------------------------------- 5

Introduction --------------------------------------------------- 5

Statement of the problem --------------------------------- 6

Literature Review -------------------------------------------- 6, 7, 8

Significance of the topic ------------------------------------ 8

QUESTIONNAIRE # 1
Methodology---------------------------------------------------- 9

Result-------------------------------------------------------------- 10, 11

QUESTIONNAIRE # 2
Methodology---------------------------------------------------- 12

Result-------------------------------------------------------------- 13 – 18

CONCLUSION---------------------------------------------------------------- 18

REFERENCE------------------------------------------------------------------ 19

APPENDIX A----------------------------------------------------------------- 2o – 22

APPENDIX B----------------------------------------------------------------- 23 – 25

ABSTRACT 3
The role of attractiveness in change of perception and are the attractive treated differently will
be explored by providing questionnaires to thirty individuals in work place. Moreover, a survey
will be held in the same regard. Participants will be given essays with photos attached to them.
Some will receive an essay with a photo of an attractive woman, others an essay with a photo
of an unattractive woman. The participants will rate the quality of the writing; the photos
attached to them will affect the ratings. Implications for the result for future result will be
discussed.

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 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

Introduction:

We usually see that people with attractive faces are treated more positively, or attractive
people are considered more likely to be successful in life. The purpose of this paper is to look at
the psychological reasons behind it.
We live in a society that is completely obsessed with beauty. Beauty as a
concept has basis in preferred facial structure and body type. When one translates this basic
scientific knowledge into social realm, it is good looking models that plaster the covers of
magazines and exist in pictures every time an individual turns on television.
The impact of faces is clearly visible in our impressions and behavior
towards people. Now the point is how attractiveness changes our perception? Physical
attractiveness creates a powerful first impression on the mind, so powerful that we may go
much beyond looks and start generating assumptions about a person’s success, status,
parenting and intelligence, even if they prove not to be true as [ CITATION Dav16 \l 1033 ] says in
You are not so smart. According to some psychologists, the halo effect is one of the basic
reasons for judging one’s personality only on the basis of physical attractiveness. It will be
discussed later in this paper.
We also believe that it is true that attractiveness changes perception and
people intentionally or unintentionally treat physically attractive people in favorable ways
because it has become a common practice now-a-days. The way mass media present things also
has great impacts on our perceptions. Moreover there are many psychological factors in play as
well. All these reasons are responsible for change in perceptions because of physical
attractiveness. Now let us have a look at the information that is available regarding this topic
and then decide either these factors are responsible or not.

Statement of the problem

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of physical attractiveness on perception
and why attractive people are treated differently?

LITERATURE REVIEW
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Are the attractive treated differently?

“Beauty in the things exists in the mind which contemplates them” [ CITATION Hum57 \l 1033 ].
According to this statement, what we consider beautiful depends on our perception. Moreover
we tend to make assumptions about people based on either we consider them beautiful or not.
For instance, a person may strive to be fashionable, cover his body with tattoos to create a
rebellious image, dress up in strict suits to look like an academician and so on. These are
somewhat unspoken messages projected outwards for other people or to establish self-
identity, or possibly both.
Either projected intentionally or unintentionally, these messages form our first
impression towards people. To understand our weakness to beauty, we need to understand the
power of first impression. First impression lingers in mind and effect the way we see others.
This comes from our adaptive behavior.

“To speed up processing, your brain tends first to apply very simple labels to the things you
encounter minute by minute. You can thank your ancestors for paying attention to these
labels for millions of years, because some of the things you are most likely to encounter in life
are now hardwired into your mind as being good or bad, desirable or undesirable”.
“When you make decisions and kindle beliefs based on innate sensations, psychologists say
you are using the affect heuristic. An effect, in psychological terms, is a feeling that needs no
further analysis. It isn’t a coherent thought with words and symbols attached, but rather, a
raw emotional state, a twinge or a jolt, or just a general sensation that sets a tone or a
mood.”
[ CITATION Dav16 \l
1033 ]

This heuristic influence is what psychologists call the “halo effect”.

The halo effect causes one trait (i.e. beauty in this case) to drastically color your perception of
all the other traits. For instance, if you think someone is beautiful you are also likely to assume
they are socially competent, influential, intelligent, trustworthy and healthy [ CITATION Eag92 \l
1033 ]. In fact, we all have made these assumptions before, for good or evil.

[ CITATION Dav16 \l 1033 ] continues,

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“In the last one hundred years of research, beauty seems to be the one thing that most
reliably produces the halo effect”.

Now let us have a look at some of the research conducted in this

regard. In 1972 psychologists Karen Dion, Ellen Berscheid, and Elaine Walster conducted a
research to see how beauty elicits the halo effect. The participants were told that the study was
focused on first impressions. Each participant received three envelopes containing three
photographs that were rated by the researchers on a scale of attractiveness as highly attractive,
average, and not so attractive. The subjects had to judge 27 different personality traits based
on the photographs.

The results? With nothing but a photograph on which to base their

judgments, participants judged that highly attractive people possessed most of the positive
traits as compared to less attractive people [ CITATION Kar72 \l 1033 ] . All of these judgments
were based on one picture, but it makes sense because humans are always predicting and going
beyond what’s at face value.

Attractive appearance involves a role in the job market as well. Attractive

individuals are more likely to get a job than those who are less attractive. Candidates with
beautiful features are more likely to be successful in job interviews. Mostly attractive
individuals receive higher offers for starting salary and better advancement opportunities.
Overall, attractiveness is the determining factor that affects hiring process and thus is a real
advantage to those people perceived as attractive [ CITATION Dip75 \l 1033 ].

Although beauty is in the eye of beholder, much of what we

believe to be beautiful is diluted by media. Without self-awareness, we can be pulled left and
right in search of what is beautiful. The ideal thin, attractive woman or guy with a chiseled jaw
line is relentlessly portrayed on television. This is one of the reasons that make it difficult to set
aside artificial standards of beauty and be more compassionate towards others.

In another research, preschool children were presented with a

picture of a novel object (objects they had never seen before). They were also given two
"informants" - one attractive and one less attractive. When each of the informants gave the
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object with a different name, the children in the study were significantly more likely to pick the
attractive informant as the one to trust or believe [ CITATION Bas14 \l 1033 ]. It is found that the
brain more efficiently processes information from attractive faces over less attractive faces
[ CITATION Tru14 \l 1033 ]. Therefore a face that is more familiar may require less brain
processing

From the above explanation it is clear that physical attractiveness

plays an important role in modern society, making it an important psychological issue that
should be researched on.

Significance of the topic

The topic of beauty and its influence has been debated among
cultures throughout human history. Beauty has been widely regarded as a mysterious force on
the psyche that reveals its power through different stories. Physical attractiveness has
important social consequences. For instance, beauty is associated with high economic mobility,
etc. Their also exists a “what is good, is beautiful” stereotype. These kinds of perceptions are
somewhat far from the reality and can lead to wrong decisions in some cases. Therefore it is
very important not to pass judgments that are solely based on physical attractiveness.

QUESTIONNAIRE # 1
METHODOLOGY

Source of data:

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 Data for this study was collected using a questionnaire developed by our
group members. The questionnaire was to test whether facial attractiveness affects the
perception or not. The participants were provided with two articles with photos of the writers
attached to them. In order to avoid gender factor, two separate questionnaires were prepared
for male and female. The questionnaire provided to male participants consisted photographs of
male authors whereas the questionnaire provided to female participants consisted photos of
female authors. Some received the questionnaire with the photo of attractive author and some
received the questionnaire with the photo of an unattractive author. The articles were identical
and taken randomly from internet. Moreover the photos of the authors were also not real. The
participants were asked to rate the quality of the article. They were provided with three
options. The first two options contained the name of the authors respectively and the third
option contained the names of both. The purpose of choosing identical articles was to test
either the photos effect the perception of the participants or not as the articles were almost
same. A copy of the questionnaire is contained in the Appendix A, page # 20 – 22.

Participants:

The questionnaire was provided to 20 participants out of which 10 were male

participants and 10 were female participants.

Results:
The findings will be displayed in three ways; essay, table and graphs. According to
7 male participants, the article with photo of attractive male author was best written. Whereas
3 participants chose the other article and only 1 participant went with the option of “both”.
According to 4 female participants, the article with the photo of attractive female
author was best written. Whereas 5 participants chose the other article and here again, just one
participant chose the option of “both”.
It can be seen clearly from the results that attractiveness has
immense impact on perception. The changed perception is clear in the result of male
participants; however, in the case of female participants the majority vote is with less attractive
author but with a difference of just one vote. Here the worth mentioning point is that only one
participant from both the sides chose the right option i.e. “both” because the articles were
identical. So, the effect of attractiveness can be seen clearly. One more result that can be
deduced from this research is that generally you expect better performances from the
attractive people even before you know anything else about them.
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Table:

Statistics

best written article according to you

best written article according to you
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Valid 20 Percent
N watson mart 6 30.0 30.0 30.0
Missing 0
john abex 3 15.0 15.0 45.0

both 1 5.0 5.0 50.0

ellen peter 4 20.0 20.0 70.0

Valid
max iris 5 25.0 25.0 95.0

both 1 5.0 5.0 100.0

Total 20 100.0 100.0

Graph:

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LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

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 This study may be limited through the use of a questionnaire as a data
collection instrument. The research was limited to one educational department and was
restricted to youngsters between the ages of 19-25. Therefore care should be taken while
generalizing these findings to all the group ages.

QUESTIONNAIRE # 2

METHODOLOGY

Source of Data:

Data for this study was collected using a questionnaire developed by our
group members. The questionnaire was to test whether the workers are impressed with the
personality of the DIRECTOR upon them or the DIRECTOR really deserves the job. 10 questions
were asked to check the point of view of the workers about their DIRECTOR. The questions
belonged to the facial attractiveness, personality traits and performance of the Director. Most
of the applicants have preferred internal beauty of their director rather than external
personality. A copy of the questionnaire is contained in Appendix B, page # 23 – 25.
As Khalil Gibran says:-
“Beauty is not in the face; Beauty is the light in the heart”

Participants:

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 The questionnaire we provided to 30 workers in “Excise and Taxation
Department”. Fortunately we have received a very good response from the participants. The
workers who responded to our questionnaires included post of clerk, senior clerk, constable,
inspector, DEO, AETO, and ETO. 3 DEO, 2 senior clerks, 9 clerks, 8 constables, 6 inspectors, 1
ETO and 1 AETO have filled our questionnaire.

Results:

The result will be presented in three ways; essay, table and graph. 28
workers think that their Director deserves the post, while 2 think that their director is not
eligible enough. 1 senior clerk and 1 inspector think the Director is not capable for the post.
Most of the workers think selection jury chooses workers according to their intelligence and
experience, while four questionnaires showed the results that facial beauty is also considered
along with two mentioned qualities. Facial beauty, confidence and intelligence are important
traits for the post of Director. Kindness, humbleness, nice behavior is also important for person
to attractive. More than 80% of workers think that director possesses an attractive personality.
We talked to some workers also about the director’s personality. According to them, Director
also deserves good marks in facial beauty. He is intelligent and confident. But, he is also liked
for his kindness and nice behavior with others. Only those results are shown in the tables and
graphs that represent the effect of attractiveness the most.

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Tables and Graphs:

Statistics

criteria for post of director in your

opinion

Valid 30

N
Missing 0

criteria for post of director in your opinion

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent

confidence and intelligence 6 20.0 20.0 20.0

confidence, intelligence with

19 63.3 63.3 83.3
facial beauty

beauty 5 16.7 16.7 100.0

Valid

Total 30 100.0 100.0

Graph 14
Table:
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 Statistics

is your director attractive

Valid 30
N
Missing 0

is your director attractive

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

yes 23 76.7 76.7 76.7

no 5 16.7 16.7 93.3

Valid may be 2 6.7 6.7 100.0

Total 30 100.0 100.0

Graph
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LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:

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 This study may be limited through the use of a questionnaire as a data
collection instrument. The research was only limited to one organization i.e. excise and taxation
department. Therefore care should be taken while generalizing these findings to entire business
sector.

CONCLUSION:

From the above paper, the importance of attractiveness in today’s world is clear.
Physical attractiveness plays a significant role in the modern society; in particular, it affects the
impressions we get from communicating to a person. To overcome it, a scientific and
psychological understanding of beauty and its effects are helpful. It’s difficult to resist putting
things on a pedestal and to not view items or people in a hierarchy. But with careful
consideration of what we’re viewing and telling ourselves, perhaps we can achieve a level of
objectivity that allows us not to be blinded by the halo above one’s head, so we may ultimately
learn to appreciate beauty in all of its forms.[ CITATION Pauth \l 1033 ]

Timelines:

23rd March- Research topic was decided

13th May- Administered survey
18th May- Finish survey
17th June- Tabulated data and determined the result
19th June- Final Report

References:

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Dipboye, F. &. (1975). Essay Sample: Change of Perception Based on Attractiveness. Retrieved june
19th,saturday, 2016, from essayshark.com › Blog › Samples

Eagly, A. M. (1991 and 1992). Essay Sample: Change of Perception Based on Attractiveness. Retrieved
june 19th, saturday, 2016, from essayshark.com › Blog › Samples

Harris, B. a. (2014). Retrieved june 19th, sunday, 2016

Hume. (1757). Essay Sample: Change of Perception Based on Attractiveness. Retrieved june 19th,
saturday, 2016, from essayshark.com › Blog › Samples

jun, P. (2016, february 24th.). why beautiful people are trated differently. motivated mystery , 1.

Karen Dion, E. B. (1972). Psychology, why beautiful people are treated differently. Retrieved june 19th,
saturday, 2016, from http://motivatedmastery.com/beautiful-people/

McRaney, D. (n.d.). Psychology- why beautiful people are treated differently. Retrieved june 19, 2016,
from http://motivatedmastery.com/beautiful-people/

Trujillo, J. L. (2014). Retrieved june 19th, 2016

APPENDIX A
QUESTIONNAIRE # 1 (female author)
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 Ellen Peter
University of California, Riverside

People with the ability to do what needs to be done, without

influence from other people or situations, are those who quality
in common and that is “self-motivation”. Self-motivation comes
from within. It is not learnt from others but developed gradually.
It helps us to achieve our goals by keeping us on path as it is well
said, “goals are set with self-motivation”. If we don’t stay on the path, we’ll fail to achieve our goals. If a
person tries to obtain all his objectives with all the fervor and intensity, only then he becomes
successful. Self-motivation fills a person with positivity and cheerfulness, which unmotivated people
surely lack. Passion, drive, planning, focus and steady action, these are the hallmarks of a self-motivated
individual.

Max Iris
University of London

A lot of very smart people end up as failures – failures in

life, work and relationships. A lot of smart people are
given opportunities for success but they don’t take
advantage of it, etc. And what is the common factor in all
these failures? It is the lack of self-motivation. As we grow up, we become self-directed individuals. We
muster up the motivation to accomplish certain things. And if we don’t become self-directed, we won’t
be able to meet success because without self-motivation, goals cannot be set. Successful people set
goals and then go after them. These goals are from within, based on that person’s passion. Moreover
self-motivation also makes a person optimistic. It provides energy and enthusiasm. But unmotivated
people have fears and insecurities about their future. Self-motivation also makes a person confident,
passionate, goal oriented and focused.

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Q) After reading the above given articles, written by two different authors; according to you which
article is best written?

a) Ellen Peter
b) Max Iris
c) Both

QUESTIONNAIRE # 1 (male author)

Watson Mart
University of California, Riverside

People with the ability to do what needs to be done, without influence from other people or situations,
are those who never ends up as failures. They utilize every chance of success by expertising in their
respective fields. They all have one quality in common and that is “self-motivation”. Self-motivation
comes from within. It helps us to achieve our goals by keeping us on path as it is well said, “goals are set
with self-motivation”. If a person tries to obtain all his objectives with all the fervor and intensity, only
then he becomes successful. Self-motivation fills a person with positivity and cheerfulness, which
unmotivated people surely lack. Passion, drive, planning, focus and steady action, these are the
hallmarks of a self-motivated individual.

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John Abex
University of London

A lot of very smart people end up as failures – failures in life, work and relationships. A lot of smart
people are given opportunities for success but they don’t take advantage of it, etc. And what is the
common factor in all these failures? It is the lack of self-motivation. As we grow up, we become self-
directed individuals. We muster up the motivation to accomplish certain things. And if we don’t become
self-directed, we won’t be able to meet success because without self-motivation, goals cannot be set.
Successful people set goals and then go after them. These goals are from within, based on that person’s
passion. Moreover self-motivation also makes a person optimistic. It provides energy and enthusiasm.
But unmotivated people have fears and insecurities about their future. Self-motivation also makes a
person confident, passionate, goal oriented and focused.

Q) After reading the above given articles written by two different authors, according to you which
article is the best written?

a) Watson Mart
b) John Abex
c) Both

APPENDIX B
QUESTIONNAIRE # 2

Your officer position: Department:

Your Extra Bonus: Salary
Your Position: Period:

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Kindly do favor and be honest to fulfill this form. All the information gathered from these
Questionnaires will be confidential. Your name, status or any kind of such information will
not be revealed and will be completely protected.

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Perception Based on Attractiveness

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 Your “DIRECTOR” has:
a. Facial beauty
b. Confidence
c. Intelligence
d. a & b
e. b & c
f. a & c
g. All of above
In your opinion, what is the criteria for the post of “DIRECTOR”:
a. Confidence & Intelligence
b. Confidence, Intelligent with facial beauty
c. Beauty
What traits “YOUR DIRECTOR” should possess according to you:
a. Facial Attractiveness
b. Confidence & Intelligence
c. a & b
4) Has your “DIRECTOR” been chosen fairly:
a. Yes
b. No
According to you, what does your selection Jury sees in an applicant which
5) is selected:
a. Intelligence & Experience
b. Attractiveness & Confidence
c. All
d. None
What does you think about your “DIRECTOR’s” performance:
a. Good
b. Fine
c. Nice
d. Fair
e. Excellent
Does your selected “DIRECTOR” deserve the post?
a. Yes
b. No
What are the criteria of attractiveness according to you?
a. Beauty
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b. Intelligence & Confidence
c. Politeness & Kindness
d. a , b & c
e. a , b
NOTE: PLEASE give reason for your answer:

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