Attractive women inspire men to tell the truth and women to lie: study

Adriana Diaz
·2 min read
women smiling together and woman and man smiling together
A study, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, revealed how a woman's appearance impacts people's moral behavior.

The face of honesty is looking pretty good.

Published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, the research aimed to reveal how a woman’s appearance impacts the moral behavior of others.

Researchers in Tel Aviv gave men and women, 110 individuals each, a questionnaire with an image of a woman attached, and falsely told participants it was the face of the scientist leading the study.

Researchers in Tel Aviv gave 110 males and 110 females a questionnaire with an image of a woman attached, whom they were told was leading the study. Getty Images
Researchers in Tel Aviv gave 110 males and 110 females a questionnaire with an image of a woman attached, whom they were told was leading the study. Getty Images

Half of the questionnaires featured the image of a typically attractive woman and the other half, a less attractive woman.

The results showed that men were more likely to behave more honestly when they believed they were interacting with a beautiful woman while the opposite pattern was seen in female participants, who exhibited “a beauty penalty toward attractive women,” study authors wrote.

The researchers attributed women’s reactions to an attractive female to “the negative emotional priming of female jealousy and envy, which is related to social comparison theory.”

Men’s behavior, on the other hand, was linked to the “beauty premium” — a previously proven phenomenon that has found that beautiful people are often assumed to have good character traits and a good life.

The results showed that men were more likely to behave more honestly when they believed they were interacting with a beautiful woman. Getty Images
The results showed that men were more likely to behave more honestly when they believed they were interacting with a beautiful woman. Getty Images

The reality of “pretty privilege” has long been debated as people dispute how their looks have helped or hindered them in different aspects of their lives.

Last summer, the topic went viral as some women bragged about the lavish gifts and expensive trips they received because of their good looks and others complained being hot was a “curse.”

“People overall treat you much differently and they don’t judge you for your actions, they judge you just from your appearance,” Shye Lee told The Post — a sentiment that seems to be backed by research.

Women tended to behave more dishonestly when they thought they were dealing with an attractive woman. Getty Images
Women tended to behave more dishonestly when they thought they were dealing with an attractive woman. Getty Images

“Pretty girl privilege only works in certain aspects of life,” Lee said. Sure, being really good looking is handy when it comes to free drinks, VIP tables and rich guys, but the benefits, she noted, are limited.

“Pretty girls are never taken seriously,” Lee said.

Others insisted that the downsides of “pretty privilege” had more to do with beautiful women’s behavior.

“There are very few people that are so beautiful that people are just alienating them for no reason,” TikToker Amber Khan, 45, from the Upper West Side insisted to The Post.

However, research has shown that the shallow reality is while beauty may only be skin deep, it’s impact runs deeper.