Women tend to be much more forgiving of a man’s misdeeds if they find him physically attractive.
Usually we quickly form the first impression of people, but it is not always correct. Often, our knowledge of a person is formed on the basis of external traits, such as beauty or attractiveness, and we begin to attribute to a man (or woman) a whole set of positive (“angel effect”), or negative (“devil effect”) traits.
Jeremy Gibson and Jonathan Gore of Eastern Kentucky University (USA) conducted an experiment to determine how physical attractiveness and adherence to social norms affect the perception of men by women. 170 female students were shown photographs of men and told a story. In one of the two photographs, the man’s face was attractive; in the other, it was not. In one of the stories the man did something bad, in the other he didn’t.
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It turned out that when an ugly man committed an antisocial act, the attitude towards him deteriorated greatly – as if the “devil effect” worked with a vengeance. On the contrary, the attitude towards the handsome man who stumbled usually did not change. “Women are ready to tolerate ugly men only if they behave decently,” Gibson comments on the results.
The “angel” and “devil” effects often play a big role when looking for a partner on dating sites. Gibson and Gore believe that if an outwardly unattractive man says something unusual about himself in a questionnaire on a site, women are more likely to ignore him. If the same information is found on the page of a handsome man, interest in him is unlikely to fade away. Not the most attractive men who do not report anything alarming about themselves also have a chance.
Similar results have implications for the judiciary as well. Studies have shown that outwardly unattractive defendants tend to receive harsher sentences. Indeed, the defendant is, by definition, suspected of committing anti-social acts, and it is likely that the jury’s view is also influenced by the “devil effect”.
For more information, see J. Gibson, J. Gore, “You’re OK Until You Misbehave: How Norm Violations Magnify the Attractiveness Devil Effect,” Gender Issues, May 27, 2015.