The Influence of Physical Attractiveness on Belief in a Just World

Authors

R. Shane Westfall, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Murray G. Millar, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Aileen Lovitt, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-8-2018

Publication Title

Psychological Reports

First page number:

1

Last page number:

14

Abstract

Previous work has consistently found that belief in a just world is strongly correlated with societal privilege. In the present study, we examined the influence of physical attractiveness on belief in a just world. We hypothesized that physically attractive individuals would be stronger endorsers of belief in a just world, whereas less attractive individuals would be less likely to endorse belief in a just world. Both self-rated attractiveness (experiment one) and attractiveness rated by other persons (experiment two) were found to predict endorsement of belief in a just world. Additionally, both attractiveness measures were found to have a relationship with participant’s level of life satisfaction. These findings suggest that physical attractiveness powerfully affects our subjective experience as a human and that just-world beliefs are driven, at least in part, by personal experience with inequality.

Keywords

Attractiveness; Halo effect; Individual differences; Just-world beliefs

Disciplines

Psychology

Language

English

Repository Citation

Westfall, R. S., Millar, M. G., Lovitt, A. (2018). The Influence of Physical Attractiveness on Belief in a Just World. Psychological Reports 1-14.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0033294118763172