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Running head: HOW DOES ATTRACTIVENESS INFLUENCE LANGUAGE

How Does Attractiveness Influence Language Use?

Andrea Griffin

Catawba College

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Social Psychology 3560. Social

Psychology

11/28/2021

On my honor, I Andrea have not violated the honor code in completing this work
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Abstract

I examined the role of the halo effect on race and women’s attractiveness within language use to

determine if attractive people use positive affect in their language. Pictures of two-hundred

women were shown to participants on Power Point slides to rate the attractiveness of women.

Words in the captions containing pronouns, positive, negative, function and “I” were compared

to the attractiveness of the women that were rated. The results of the study did not support the

hypothesis that attractive people use positive affect in their language. I found that unattractive

women were talking more with function words than highly attractive women. Therefore, they are

using more transitional phrases in their sentences which proposes they talk with meaningful

purpose.

Key words: attractiveness, language affect, positive, negative, function, “I”

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How Does Attractiveness Influence Language Use?

We make judgments of other people every day, and social media is the most common

platform where judging others’ physical features takes place. We make assumptions about

others’ physical features without knowing more information about individuals, like their

personality. The judgments are then related to aspects of the individuals, like characteristics. This

is called the halo effect, seeing one salient positive quality about an individual and then assuming

they are great as a whole person (Thorndike, 1920). An example of this would be seeing an

attractive individual and assuming they’re positive and happy. The halo effect causes us to make

assumptions about others’ personalities. Today we mainly apply these judgments of others in

social media. The opposite effect can also happen, called the fork tail effect. An example of this

is seeing an unattractive individual and assuming they are not happy and are negative. Does the

halo effect improve interactions, relate to positive personality traits, and cause the individual to

respond more positively?

People who are physically attractive have better advantages in social interactions as

opposed to those who are unattractive. Langlois et al. (2000) examined how the halo effect

operates in the social interactions of children and adults. The results of the Langlois et al. (2000)

metanalysis explain that attractive adults and children are treated better and have more positive

traits. As well as respond with more positive behaviors within social interactions, unlike the

unattractive children and adults. Therefore, it was concluded that attractive people have better

personalities and people treat them better as well. For example, physically attractive people are

assumed to have more job capability but are wrongly employed by not being fit for the job

(Mobius & Rosenblata, 2006). Although they are given more opportunities, they may not be

equipped to do the job. However, the halo effect makes them salient and stand out to business
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employers. In which the business employers overestimate how capable the individual is for the

job. People who are physically attractive are also seen to have positive personality aspects rather

than unattractive people. For instance, Langlois and Griffin (2006) inspected the halo effect and

how positive and negative attributes are affected by attractive faces. The results explain that

unattractive faces have a disadvantage and are related to negativity. Attractive individuals are

more advantaged than unattractive individuals. For example, in the study Dion et al. (1972)

studied the halo effect to see if others assumed attractive people had more favorable traits and

better outcomes in life. The results of Dion et al. (1972) clarify that physically attractive people

tend to have more positive traits and positive life outcomes. This means that they will have a

better outcome in their marriage life and have a variety of social interactions day-to-day (Dion et

al., 1972). The unattractive individuals will not have outcomes that are as pleasant as the

attractive individuals. This may make one wonder if personality is affected by attractiveness,

which can lead to self-fulfilling prophecy.

Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when an individual is treated well by people and

internalizes expectations, then behaving that way spontaneously (Snyder et al., 1977). This

causes one to act nice all the time because they are treated nicely by multiple people. Individuals

express Self-fulfilling prophecy through their language use, social media, and their behavior. For

instance, the results of the Langlois et al. (2000) metanalysis explained that attractive children

and adults had overall better interactions with people. This occurred because they were treated

positively and then acted positively as their response, and thus we might conclude that attractive

people have better overall personalities because of self-fulfilling prophecy. In the study by Reis

et al. (1982) they examined why attractive people have better interactions than unattractive

people. The results expressed that attractive people will appear to have more social competence.
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Therefore, they have better and more interactions because of their looks. In turn, this leads to

physically attractive people being more skilled socially. In the study by Tartaglia and Rollero

(2015) attractiveness was studied to determine if it influenced gender, occupational status, and

evaluations of others. Attractive participants were found to be more positive and assumed to

have good social skills from perceivers. This could be why attractive people have more social

interactions with others and receive more opportunities. The halo effect creates the assumption

that because they are attractive, they must have good social skills. Snyder and Swann (1978) also

studied self-fulfilling prophecy within social interactions. The study presented that once being

treated a specific way, the likelihood of that person acting in that manner is increased. Therefore,

physically attractive individuals being treated well and responding, in the same manner, may

have this trait adhere to their personality. Attractive individuals have known to be assumed to

make moral judgments because of their beauty (Cui et al., 2019). This could mean that not only

are attractive people assumed to have positive traits, but they also find others just as positive as

well. There are studies to determine if the spontaneous positive response attaches to their

personality.

Although attractive people have more advantages, there are some studies that explain

how their personality is impacted. In another study by Dion et al. (1972) the halo effect was

studied to determine if attractiveness is a strong predictor of positive personality traits and life

outcomes. The results of Dion et al. (1972) explain that positive personality traits and life

outcomes are an outcome of attractiveness. People who are attractive are understood to be better

in social situations, in their personality, and in their lives. This may include their language use,

and how they express themselves on social media. In the study by Langlois et al. (2000) it was

found that individuals who are attractive do have overall better personalities. However, it is
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argued in the study by Eagly et al. (1991) that beauty equals good depending on what type of

inference the perceiver makes from the attractive individual. Although attractiveness has a very

positive relationship to social skills, it makes not be as strongly connected to personality. In

another study by Lorenzo et al. (2010) examined the halo effect and how perceivers judge

attractive individuals on their personality through self-personality judgments. The study found

that those who were more physically attractive were seen to have more positive traits as opposed

to those who were unattractive. The participants in the study described the judgments of their

personalities to be an accurate depiction of their personality. Therefore, individuals who are

attractive are judged more accurately by others through their language use.

The Pennebaker (2015) study discusses how the LIWC word processor is the best logical

way to explore personality through language. In the study by Park et al. (2012) they gathered

language that was used in social media to determine if they could detect personality. Using

language to detect personality traits was a valid way of understanding an individual’s personality

(Mori & Haruno, 2019: Hall et al., 2015).

In sum, women who are seen as attractive tend to have better personalities and receive

better treatment from others due to the halo effect. This includes better social interactions, more

opportunities, and placement into jobs they may not be skilled for, suggesting that women who

are physically attractive tend to be happier in their daily lives. The purpose of this study is to

determine if physically attractive women are as happy as they presume to be. I hypothesize that

the women who are perceived as attractive will have more positive language use in their

Instagram captions, implying that they are happier rather than unhappy.

Method

Sample and Stimuli

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A set of 200 photos of White women (100) and non-White women (100) were obtained

from Instagram and were used in the study. The photos obtained were from women unknown to

experimenters and judges, and were from open accounts on Instagram of women in their early

20’s. The pictures were split into three different Power Points, 75 in two and 50 in one. Each

slide had one picture on it, showing only the shoulders up, and was timed 5 sec long. Twenty-

eight participants known to the experimenters rated the women in the power points on a 7-point

scale (1) unattractive to (7) highly attractive. Out of the 28 participants, 10 participants saw the

first subset of 75 pictures and the other 10 participants saw the second subset of 75 pictures in

fall of 2021. The first 50 pictures had been rated previously with eight participants in spring

2021.

Reliabilities

The raters made independent judgments of the attractiveness of 200 women in the power

points. Reliability was calculated for each picture which created a mean for attractiveness of

highly attractive and unattractive. All measures were reliable with percent agreement for each

subset of pictures, all were above .80 (pictures α = .964, α = .958, α = .868) respectively. Each

photo was then placed into one of two categories, unattractive and highly attractive based on the

judges’ ratings.

Procedure

After the participants were seated, I read the instructions. Once consent from each

participant was provided, they were told they would have 5 s to rate the pictures for both the

previous 50 and the Power Points containing 75. If participants missed the picture, they were told

they could see the Power Point again. At the end of the experiment, I then debriefed the

participants on the task of rating pictures.

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Dependent measures

I placed all the captions from the 200 women’s Instagram posts into 600 separate word

documents. Each caption was processed through the LIWC which would calculate specific

affect. The method to determine if attractiveness influences language use was the Pennebaker et

al. (2015) Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). The program detects the percentage of

language that was positive and negative. Language that is associated to positive affect are words

like, happy, pretty, hope and good. Language that is associated to negative affect is like, ugly,

stupid, and sad. The program would also detect personal concerns, and function words.

Results

Positive Affect and “I” Affect

In order to examine if attractiveness influenced language use, 2 x 2 (Race x

Attractiveness) ANOVAs and MANOVAs were applied to language. Means and standard

deviations can be found in Table 1. The results of “I” ANOVA were not significant for Race F(1,

27) = .93, p = .336, attractiveness F(1, 27) = .19, p = .658, and interaction F(1, 27) = .19, p = .

656. An ANOVA was applied to the positive affect used in language was not significant for

attractiveness F(1, 127) = .13, p = .710, race F(1, 127) = .51, p = .475, and for the interaction

F(1, 127) = .01, p = .907.

Function and Negative Affect

The results of the Function ANOVA for attractiveness did not produce a main effect F(1,

127) = .35, p = .554 nor an interaction F(1, 127) = .16, p = .693. The main effect of Race was

significant F(1, 127) = 9.56, MSE = 145.39, p = .002, ηp2 = .07. The results of the Negative

Affect MANOVA for Attractiveness F(3, 125) = 1.00, p = .264, Race F(3, 125) = 1.34, p = .393,

and interaction F(3, 125) = .03, p = .993 were not significant.

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Personal Concerns

The MANOVA for personal concerns was not significant for attractiveness F(6, 122) =

1.88, p = .089, or in the interaction F(6, 122) = 1.13, p = .346. The means and standard

deviations can be found in Table 1. The means and confidence intervals from this analysis are

located Figure 1 and Figure 2. However, the results of race F(6, 122) = 3.45, p = .003, ηp2 = .15

were significant in Work F(1, 127) = 2.41, MSE = 24.82, p = .123, ηp2 = .019, with White

women (M = 1.47, SD = 3.89) discussing more about work than unattractive women of color (M

= .71, SD = 2.41). Leisure produced a main effect of race F(1, 127) = 12.42, MSE = 681.55, p = .

001, ηp2 = .089, in which White women (M = 6.90, SD = 14.27) talked more about leisure more

than women of color (M = 0.65, SD = 2.26). Home produced a main effect of race F(1, 127) =

4.30, MSE = 15.98, p = .040, ηp2 = .033, meaning that White women (M = .75, SD = 2.66) talked

more about home than women of color (M = .08, SD = .67)

Discussion

The results of this study revealed that there was a difference in language use between

race and attractiveness. The findings did not support our hypothesis. Race had more differences

within language use than attractiveness. Highly attractive women did not talk with positive

affect more than unattractive women. The use of the “I” words were used fairly equal among

White women and women of color. There were no differences between the unattractive and

highly attractive women in using “I” words. This explains that “I” words, or individuals talking

about themselves was equal amongst the women. Function was used more among women of

color as compared to White women. Meaning that women of color use words that create

structural relationships within the sentence. Function words are also used to explain things,

therefore, expressing that women of color are talking with purpose within their language.
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Women who were thought to be attractive or unattractive used the same amount of function

words. The differences were found within race rather than attractiveness. There was no

difference of negative affect used in language between race and attractiveness. Explaining that

use of anxiety, sad, and anger were discussed the same amount within language. In personal

concerns, there was a difference in White women and women of color discussing work, leisure,

and home. White women talked more about work than women of color. White women had used

more leisure in their language use than women of color. White women discussed more about

home in their language rather than women of color. As for attractiveness, there was no difference

in usage of language in personal concerns.

This study can be compared to the study of Langlois et al. (2000) in which they found

that attractive individuals were treated and responded overall more positively compared to

unattractive people. Another difference in this study compared to Langlois et al. (2000) they used

adults and children in their study, unlike this study which had only adult women. Similarly,

different ethnicities were also used in the study to determine attractiveness. Langlois et al. (2000)

also had ratings in their study along with observation of behavior. The children and adults in

study by Langlois et al. (2000) seemed happier if attractive unlike the unattractive individuals.

The attractive women in this study did not prove to be happier in their captions. Although

Thorndike (1920) did argue that halo effect theory was correct, the findings did not support it.

Another study can support how attractiveness may not be related to personality. Eagly et al.

(1999) found that highly attractive individuals may not have a strong relationship with a positive

personality. Like this study, attractiveness did not have a strong relationship to determining

language use. Judgments of perception was used on attractive and unattractive individuals in the

study by Eagly et al. (1999), unlike this study which used ratings to determine attractiveness.
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This study implies that attractive people may not be as happy as presumed to be. As well

as race being a determinate factor as to how language may be used. There is a difference between

race and use of function words and personal concerns in language. In which, women of color use

function words and personal concerns more often. This information is important because it

identifies that attractive people are not actually happy. Another reason as to why this study is

important is because it identifies that women of color talk with purpose in their language. The

outcomes could be used to explain intelligence. For the reason as to why women of color spend

more time putting purpose and notability into their language use. As well as for the reason as to

why attractive people are not actually happy. Which could be further examined to understand

mental health. Some critiques for the study would be that the scale that was used may not be as

thorough as assumed. For instance, another scale may have provided more answers like

personality judgments. Another critique of the study is that it was all women, men in the study

would provide more information about attractiveness and race. For instance, adding men to the

study could display the differences between sex and their language use. Overall, the halo effect

may only be applicable in some circumstances, but race contains valuable information about

language use.
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Table 1

Means and SDs of Race and Attractiveness Affecting Language Use.

Race

White Non-White

(n = 65) (n = 68)

Attractiveness

Low High Low High

(n = 67) (n = 66) (n = 67) (n = 66)

“I” 6.40 5.67 6.45 7.15

(5.47) (6.53) (4.74) (6.27)

Function 43.08 34.48 44.63 42.13

(12.65) (16.12) (14.04) (14.92)

Positive emotions 11.07 13.24 10.57 13.31

(11.48) (14.73) (10.33) (10.94)

Negative emotions

Anxiety .03a .00a .45b .49b

(.17) (.00) (1.48) (2.86)

Anger .00a .45b .00a .59b

(.00) (2.53) (.00) (1.69)

Table Continues
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Table 1 continued.

Means and SDs of Race and Attractiveness Affecting Language Use.

Race

White Non-White

(n = 65) (n = 68)

Attractiveness

Low High Low High

(n = 67) (n = 66) (n = 67) (n = 66)

Sad .30 .69 .52 .78

(1.28) (3.08) (1.70) (3.04)

Personal Concerns

Work 1.99 .93 .53 .88

(4.35) (3.23) (1.56) (3.04)

Leisure 3.10 6.90 .43 .87

(4.15) (14.27) (1.40) (2.88)

Home .96b .54b .16b .00a

(3.30) (1.80) (.95) (.00)

Money 1.88 1.74 .55 4.90

(5.26) (5.07) (1.88) (2.88)

Table Continues
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Table 1 continued

Means and SDs of Race and Attractiveness Affecting Language Use.

Race

White Non-White

(n = 65) (n = 68)

Attractiveness

Low High Low High

(n = 67) (n = 66) (n = 67) (n = 66)

Religion 1.12 2.64 .66 1.69

(2.99) (7.56) (1.89) (4.85)

Death .66b .13b .00a .00a

(2.30) (.73) (.00) (.00)

Note. The Means reflect the responses made on a 7-point scale. Means with different subscripts
within rows are significantly different, p < .05.