underestimation of the role of physical attractiveness in dating preferences: ignorance or taboo?, The

Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, Apr 1994 by Hadjistavropoulos, Thomas, Genet, Myles

A recent meta - analytic review of the physical attractiveness stereotype c oncluded that this stereotype is not as strong as suggested by the often - used summary phrase "wha t is beautiful is good" (Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991). This conclusion may be due to the lack of procedures to detect less truthful responses of subjects participating in phy sical attractiveness experiments. Thus, demonstrating that such procedures strengthen the manifestat ion of the stereotype could have theoretical and methodological implications for this area of research.

The question whether people are aware of the impact of physical attractiven ess is also relevant to the introspection literature in that it could determine whether theo retical work on introspection (e.g., Ericsson and Simon's, 1981, prediction that accurate intros pective reports can be obtained by using within - subjects designs and by tapping short - term m emory) can be generalized to a new context. In addition, controls for social desirability, wh ich are employed in the present study, are important in establishing the validity of previous fin dings relevant to introspection.

The Current Investigation

The present study was designed to investigate (a) whether subjects are aware of and reluctant to admit the impact of physical attractiveness on their behaviour, and (b) facto rs that affect the accuracy of introspective reports. A dating context was used for the study beca use of existing discrepancies between survey and experimental investigations on dating preferenc es. It has also been shown that strong reliance on physical attractiveness is considered a socia lly undesirable influence on dating preferences (Hadjistavropoulos, 1991), so that participants would likely be even more reluctant to admit being affected by attractiveness in situations that could lead to more serious discrimination (e.g., employment opportunities).

A bogus - pipeline was used (Jones & Sigall, 1971) to determine whether ina ccuracies in the self - reported impact of physical attractiveness were intentional or unintentio nal. This manipulation, which involves persuading subjects that they are connected to a fo rm of lie - detector, has been found to lead to more truthful responding (Quigley - Fernande z & Tedeschi, 1978).

A difference in reports between bogus - pipeline (BPL) and non - bogus - pi peline (NBPL) groups would indicate deliberate false responding by the group who was not convi nced that any falsification could be detected by the lie - detector. We adopted guidelines pr oposed by Ericsson and Simon (1981) for obtaining accurate introspective reports. In addition, we employed checks to determine how much of the accuracy that subjects might display would result f rom a priori theories about how people make judgements rather than from specific knowledge of their own judgements (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Finally, we also used controls for covaria tion detection (Nisbett & Ross, 1980), that is, the possibility that subjects, rather than intr ospecting, were reporting about the factors that affected them by observing covariations between their responses and the changes in the stimuli (Gavanski & Hoffman, 1987).