Beautiful seems good, but perhaps not in every way

Linking attractiveness to moral evaluation through perceived vanity

Bibliographic Data

ID6202863
AuthorsDa Eun Han (0000-0001-8699-439X), Sean M Laurent (0000-0003-0130-7867)
Year2023
Volume124
Issue2
Pages264-286
Publication date2023-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/pspa0000317
PMID35653733
OpenAlexW4282014677
LanguageEN
Citations received13

For almost 50 years, psychologists have understood that what is beautiful is perceived as good. This simple and intuitively appealing hypothesis has been confirmed in many ways, prompting a wide range of studies documenting the depth and breadth of its truth. Yet, for what is arguably one of the most important forms of "goodness" that there is-moral goodness-research has told a different story. Although greater attractiveness is associated with a host of positive attributes, it has been only inconsistently associated with greater perceived morality (or lesser immorality), and meta-analyses have suggested the total effect of beauty on moral judgment is near zero. The current research documents one plausible reason for this. Across nine experiments employing a variety of methodological and measurement strategies, we show how attractiveness can be perceived as both morally good and bad. We found that attractiveness causally influences beliefs about vanity, which translates into beliefs that more attractive targets are less moral and more immoral. Then, we document a positive association between attractiveness and sociability-the nonmoral component of warmth-and show how sociability exerts a countervailing positive effect on moral judgments. Likewise, we document findings suggesting that vanity and sociability mutually suppress the effects of attractiveness on each other and on moral judgments. Ultimately, this work provides a comprehensive process account of why beauty seems good but can also be perceived as less moral and more immoral, highlighting complex interrelations among different elements of person perception. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Aesthetics · Attractiveness · Beauty · Epistemology · Immorality · Moral disengagement · Morality · Perception · Physical attractiveness · PsycINFO · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Personality Traits and Psychology · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology