Can Looks Deceive You? Attractive Decoys Mitigate Beauty is Beastly Bias Against Women

Applicant attractiveness is usually beneficial in employee selection. However, under some circumstances, female applicant attractiveness can be detrimental, demonstrating a subtle form of gender bias. Little research has explored factors that accentuate or attenuate negative evaluations of attractive female job candidates (the beauty is beastly effect). In a series of studies, we find that the presence of a second attractive decoy job candidate in the hiring pool decreased the beauty is beastly effect. Mediation analysis suggests that the dominance heuristic explains the effect. The findings shed light on the beauty is beastly effect, the importance of context, and gender bias.