Study Shows Beautiful Women Are Less Truthful, Trustworthy Leaders

A research conducted by Leah D. Sheppard, an assistant professor in Washington State University and Stefanie K. Johnson, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, has shown that beautiful women were perceived to be less truthful and less trustworthy leaders.

The study also found that beautiful women are perceived to be more deserving of job termination than their ordinary-looking female counterparts.

The researchers mocked up articles about company layoffs that included photos of the executives announcing the layoffs.

The researches also studied how participants read the articles, rated the honesty of the leaders pictured, and decide whether they should be fired.

 When the executive shown was a woman, people found her to be less truthful and more worthy of termination if she was also highly attractive.

The research shows no difference in people’s responses to the attractive and less-attractive male spokespersons making the same statement about layoffs. In some cases, the handsome men were even seen as slightly more truthful than average-looking ones.

However, the news isn’t all bad for women as the less-attractive women were rated higher for honesty and trustworthiness than both types of men in the study.

The study found that the trope of the evil seductress: a subconscious anxiety among people of both sexes that beautiful women will use their looks to manipulate people, mostly men so as to gain economic mobility.

The study further found that for women in business, beauty is a liability.