Scientists of "attractive face" turned out to be judged to be "not capable"

ByMelissa Segal

Being an attractive appearance is generally regarded as an advantage, but in the field of scientific research, faces that are rated as "not attractive" emphasize research content and are competent as researchers It tends to have the impression that it is.

Facial appearance affects science communication
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/05/16/1620542114

In Science, Good Looks Do not Pay, Study Finds
http://www.livescience.com/59209-scientists-attractiveness-perceptions.html

We conducted research on teams of Ana Gheorghiu and others who study social psychology at Essex University. Gheorghiu Mr. et al., What kind of face is associated with "superior scientist" statue? In order to clarify that it is, to show the face photograph of 1,000 real scientists working in the United States and the UK to 3,700 subjects, evaluate about "attraction" "ethics" "intelligence" "sociability" I did it. And at the same time, "How much are you interested in the research that this person is doing?" "I asked about how accurate and important research this person seems to do?"

The results of the survey found that scientists who are evaluated as "competent" and "ethical" from facial photographs tend to be evaluated as "not attractive" and "not sociable" at the same time That. On the other hand, it turned out that it is a researcher of a face that is appreciated as "attractive" that is interested in the research content. In other words, although it is an attractive face researcher who is interested in research, its research content is difficult to emphasize. At this time, the qualities of scientists who were most interested in the research were the combination of "competent", "attractive" and "ethical".


In addition, studies conducted by researchers other than Caucasians have shown that the tendency to be "high quality" and elderly or research conducted by men is likely to attract people's interests. Regarding race, however, it is cited as a fact that most of the items included in the photographs of the face were Asian, not that they did not test race specific.

With the increasing number of researchers sending out such as SNS, Gheorghiu Mr. thinks that the result of this research has a big meaning. It is because there is a possibility that bias will be applied to how the research content will be accepted depending on what kind of face the researcher is and it could affect the government and science policy. Also, when you conduct communication research for general people, how researchers look is influenced.

Based on the results of this research, psychologist Amanda Diekman said, "It is natural that communicators have great power in the political and business world, but I have never thought that the same thing can be said about science fields "This research is also an indication of what is happening when scientists evaluate performance," he said.

ByDave Mathis