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Have you heard of the term ‘Lookism’?.

If not, I must confess that it’s a new ‘-ism’ to me, too. It’s also been described as ‘the beauty penalty’ and refers to discrimination based on physical attraction.

It would be foolish to pretend we’re not influenced by physical appearance. How many of us swoon over a beautiful baby or stare appreciatively at a gorgeous man or woman, depending on your preference? That said, it’s one thing to cast an admiring glance at an attractive person and quite another to make decisions about people’s careers and lives based on their looks.

I’ve been reading some interesting literature about lookism and some of the studies behind it. Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) studied physical appearance and how this impacted people’s lives. Overall, attractive people were perceived to have happier lives and secure more prestigious careers than unattractive individuals. This area of discrimination is considerably less researched than, say, racism or sexism, but is no less impactful on our chances in the workplace.

What does some of the research in this field tell us?

Right across different countries, there is a premium for attractiveness and a penalty for unattractiveness. Broadly speaking, your looks can help or hurt your career. Research has highlighted the effects of attractiveness on employment factors: the selection process, salary, pay rises, performance evaluation, hours worked, promotion, and termination.

Across different countries, there is a career premium for attractiveness and a penalty for unattractiveness.

In a more recent thesis ‘A Look into Lookism’, Cherea Hammer examines studies in this area and existing literature that point to evidence that “Overall, attractive individuals were subject to an array of more favorable job outcomes, which includes selection, performance evaluations, and hiring decisions, than unattractive individuals.”

Even if you believe you are not biased in this way, these findings suggest everyone involved in decision making across all areas of employment needs to understand this research to mitigate the risk of this kind of discrimination at work.

In the Eye of the Beholder

Lookism comes into play from the beginning of the employment process. As Hammer explains: ‘In a study conducted by Shannon and Stark (2003) participants were asked to choose one interview candidate from a pool of nine mock applicants. Participants were given a photo of a man varied between three levels of attractiveness; attractive, neutral, and unattractive to accompany each one of nine similar resumes for each applicant. The results of the study indicate that attractive individuals have a higher rate of selection.’ More worryingly, ‘These results occurred even after (my emphasis) participants in the study had filled out an attitudes questionnaire on which that they disagreed with the idea that appearance should play a role in the assessment of applicants.’

Alarmingly, while less experienced managers displayed the most discrimination based on attractiveness, hiring decisions by even very experienced managers were still influenced to some degree.

In studies, researchers have explored different variables to see how attractiveness plays a role in employment in conjunction with gender, job type, prestige of job, qualifications of the applicant, experience of the evaluator, and others. The results indicate that, overall, attractive applicants were more likely to be hired over unattractive applicants.

Researchers also found that obese applicants were rated lower on all factors than average sized individuals, suggesting that obesity discrimination extends across many facets of employment and affects both an employee’s salary level and ability to progress.

On top of lookism, gender discrimination also rears its ugly head. Studies indicated that attractive male applicants were rated above attractive female applicants.

Have you considered the impact of your looks on getting that sought after promotion? Well, a key study showed that when performance was mediocre, attractiveness was a factor in the promotion decision and that more attractive employees were promoted more often.

The good news is that superior qualifications will still give you an advantage. The studies cited found that when an individual possesses high qualifications, attractiveness does not affect selection decisions. Unfortunately, where qualifications are average or low, your attractiveness can increase your chances of selection.

If beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, then biases in favour of the dominant perception of beauty are inevitable. Racism in the workplace is well documented, and The World Economic Forum points to studies showing that wage disparities widen as skin tone darkens. Research also suggests that Black women in Western workplaces are less likely to get invited to interviews while colourism studies reveal that even within Black communities and majority Black countries, lighter-skinned Black woman often benefit from a ‘beauty premium’.

Transitioning from Beauty to Brains

So, how do we move towards a more just and equitable workplace?

As with any area of discrimination and injustice, any solution must start with awareness. While unconscious bias training has taken a bit of a bashing lately, it’s crucial that those in positions of power are trained to acknowledge and understand how their biases have real life effects on those in subordinate positions.

Some researchers in the field suggest that simply raising awareness of the issue of physical attractiveness discrimination may assist in mitigating its effects. While awareness may not immediately eliminate this bias, it is a crucial first step. If employers are aware of this type of discrimination, they can take steps to address it, not only through training and group discussions in the workplace, but also by adapting their systems and processes to inject objectivity into their talent management.

It’s also important that individual professionals are aware of how such biases may affect their prospects for employment and career progression. With awareness of how lookism and physical attractiveness discrimination works, individuals can develop ways to protect against it and try to reduce the amount of discrimination they face.

It is essential for organisations that invoke diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a corporate value to create a culture that is as free from bias as possible. As Hammer says, ‘it is important for policy makers and professionals to know these solutions and their possible flaws in order to make future changes and policies to… prevent further discrimination based on physical attractiveness.’

So, now you know better, what will you do?

Founder & Managing Editor, ReConnect Africa