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Candidates’ attractiveness in selection decisions: a laboratory experiment

Article in Baltic Journal of Management · July 2017

DOI: 10.1108/BJM-01-2017-0003

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 Cristofaro, M. (2017). Candidates’ Attractiveness in Selection Decisions: A
Laboratory Experiment. Baltic Journal of Management, (12)4, pp. 390-407.

Abstract

Purpose: Recruiters in today’s organizations, through social networks, have the opportunity to see

a candidate’s overall figure and, from this, they gain a first impression of their personalities which

in turn affects their decisions. This paper investigates the biasing role of candidates’ attractiveness –

in facial and bodily terms – on perceived main personality features (i.e., core evaluations (CEs)) in

selection decisions.

Design/methodology approach: An experimental study involving professional recruiters (N=150)

was conducted. Participants were asked to rate bodily attractiveness (using the objectification

construct), CEs, facial attractiveness and hiring scores of six candidates for an administrative

position; then, a moderated mediation model was tested.

Finding: This study suggests that recruiters’ perception of candidates’ CEs mediates the

relationship between objectification (i.e. body attractiveness) and the assigned hiring score, while

facial attractiveness amplifies or reduces the effect of objectification on CEs.

Originality/value: The value added of this contribution lies in studying the biasing mechanism of

candidates’ overall attractiveness (facial and bodily) and its effects on the perceived core

personality features.

Keywords: Decision Making; Cognitive Bias; Personnel Selection; Attractiveness; Objectification;

Core Evaluations; Personality.

1
Introduction

In today’s organizations, recruiters use new media (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn) to collect information

about candidates for selection decisions (SDs) (Davison et al., 2012). During this data collection,

human behaviour is to look at personal pictures (Mashable, 2011) and derive impressions about

candidates’ personality (Kinnunen and Parviainen, 2016; Meriläinen et al., 2015). This new way of

collecting candidates’ data has been growing; recruiters who use social networks for their selection

processes have increased from 45% (2008) to 96% (2015) (Jobvite, 2015). This trend comes from

people’s increasing inclination to display personal data – including entire body pictures (KPCB,

2014) – that do not appear in CVs, and are implicitly considered by recruiters to evaluate

candidates’ fit.

Since the 1960s, candidates’ facial attractiveness and perceived personality have been the main

variables studied in recruiting processes (Paustian-Underdahl and Slattery Walker, 2016; Solnick

and Schweitzer, 1999). However, prior scholars – to the best of the author’s knowledge – have not

empirically tested, in a comprehensive, single research, the distortional (to recruiters) role of

candidates’ overall attractiveness – facial and bodily – on the perception of their main personality

traits (self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability; Judge et al., 1998) by

employers. The biasing role of candidates’ attractiveness, and its effects on perceived personality,

have been investigated using only the facial attractiveness construct and generic personality

variables (Dipboye and Colella, 2014; Morrow, 1990). For example, Judge et al. (2009) proposed a

model that links candidates’ facial attractiveness with some critical measures (for recruiters) of

candidates’ personality. These scholars demonstrated that facial attractiveness has a positive effect

on candidates’ salary, through the mediating effects of their core evaluations (CEs) – a composite

variable that works as a good predictor of job satisfaction and job performance (Judge et al., 1998;

2000). In practice, the greater the facial attractiveness of candidates, the more positive the

2
perception of their personality features and income. Nevertheless, none of these last three studies,

despite incorporating an important personality variable for SDs (i.e., CEs), considered candidates’

attractiveness in its entirety (facial and bodily).

The objectification theory of Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) can serve as a solid theoretical and

methodological base for filling this gap. The objectification phenomenon occurs when people tend

to evaluate themselves and others on bodily appearance (Harrison and Fredrickson, 2003); those

impressions therefore affect people’s behaviour – i.e., working as a bias. This paper adopts the

objectification theory to investigate the effects of bodily attractiveness on the perception of

individual dispositions that are critical for recruiters and their hiring score. An experimental study

that involved professional recruiters (N=150) who rated six potential candidates for an

administrative position has been carried out. In particular, drawing on Judge et al.’s (2009) prior

framework, a moderated mediation model is tested in which recruiters’ perception of candidates’

CEs mediates the relationship between their objectification and assigned hiring score, while their

perceived facial attractiveness moderates the influence of objectification on CEs.

In sum, this work proposes the inclusion of the study of candidate’s overall attractiveness in

SDs. This contribution is specifically aimed at scholars and professionals interested in learning

more about the way that psychological and physical aspects may cause distortions in SDs.

Theoretical Framework

The Implicit Personality Theory

Because interviewers always sketch a first impression of the candidates (Meriläinen et al., 2015),

scholars over time (Ashmore et al., 1991; Langlois et al., 2000; Morrow, 1990) have tried to

identify the variables that play an important role in SDs. This has been done to avoid unfair

3
discrimination (i.e., not based on scholastic standing and/or job-related competences), especially

with regard to candidates’ attractiveness, which plays the most important role in employment

decisions when potential candidates have similar qualifications/job performance records (Kantor et

al., 2015). Morrow (1990) defined attractiveness as the “degree to which one’s facial image elicits

favourable reactions from others” (p. 47). From that, subsequent studies have been focused on

detecting why facially attractive people are generally perceived as the best candidates for job

vacancies, receiving high hiring scores (Dipboye et al., 1975; Jackson, 1983) and high income

(Hosoda et al., 2003). These research results demonstrated that greater facial attractiveness means a

greater possibility of being hired, and receiving the salary assigned to that position. In practice,

candidates’ facial attractiveness raises a positive/negative reaction in recruiters, affecting their SDs.

However, even if facially attractive people are perceived as more successful and having more

desirable attributes (Solnick and Schweitzer, 1999), following the stereotype ‘what is beautiful is

good’ (Dion et al., 1972), the characteristics of the job for which candidates have applied also play

an important role. This phenomenon is the so-called ‘beauty is beastly effect’ (Heilman and

Saruwatari, 1979; Johnson et al., 2014), in which facially attractive people are considered (by

raters) as unsuitable for some positions because of their lack of masculine/feminine characteristics

needed for the job for which they are being selected. Following this path, other studies tried to

investigate if, in jobs for which attractiveness may be an advantage, attractiveness is related to some

positive personality attributes, and their cumulative effect in SDs. In practice, scholars have paid

attention to the so-called halo effect when recruiting, i.e., the phenomenon when the single attribute

perceived in a candidate (facially attractive/unattractive) brings with it a positive/negative view of

other candidates’ dispositions (i.e., perceiving positive/negative personality characteristics). In this

regard, Beehr and Gilmore (1982) investigated the link between candidates’ facial appearance and

general personality traits, but their results were not supportive. Other studies, however, found

confirming evidence for this relationship; particularly, raters were found to consider facially

4
attractive candidates as having specifically suitable attributes for the jobs for which they were being

selected (Kantor et al., 2015).

From a methodological standpoint, attractiveness has been studied by asking raters to rate only

the facial attractiveness of candidates using Likert scales (Beehr and Gilmore, 1982; Johnson et al.,

2014). This operationalization has never been based on a specific conceptualization of

attractiveness; candidates were always considered as facially attractive/unattractive without using

specific, validated scales and widely embraced constructs. This created both a conceptualization

and operationalization gap for the study of people’s attractiveness in SDs (Langlois et al., 2000;

Morrow, 1990).

Objectification Theory

According to Morrow (1990), scholars following the implicit personality theory have always been

focused on candidates’ facial attractiveness, but a more holistic evaluation of attractiveness would

be useful for a better understanding of workplace discrimination. Few contributions have tried to

follow this holistic view of looking at other elements comprising attractiveness, e.g. weight (Larkin

and Pines, 1979), even if the perceptions of attractiveness in organizations has become

predominant, especially in SDs. Scholars have highlighted that search practices of headhunters are

constantly influenced by the perceptions they have of candidates. Among them, it has been proved

that the visual perception of the candidate’s body should match the employees’ idealized body in

recruiters’ minds, so as to have the chance to be hired (Meriläinen et al., 2015). This phenomenon

mainly occurs when employees’ bodily features are perceived (by various stakeholders) as a

component of what the firm sells (this phenomenon is also called personification; Mari and

Poggesi, 2013). Recruitment is now considered as an embodied process in which candidates are

evaluated/discriminated on the ‘gut feelings’ caused by their appearance and by other, not

5
competence-based, characteristics regarded as proxies of their personalities (Kinnunen and

Parviainen, 2016).

Bartky (1990) was the first to consider the psychological influencing role of the entire body and,

adopting the feminist theory lens, to seminally identify the body of people – women in particular –

as a main object of evaluation by themselves and others in daily life. In particular, Bartky (1990)

coined the term objectification to define how “[a woman’s] sexual parts or sexual functions are

separated out from the rest of her personality and reduced to the status of mere instruments or else

regarded as if they were capable of representing her” (p. 26). Later, Fredrickson and Roberts (1997)

proposed a theoretical framework on the so-called concept of objectification of girls and women,

based on the rooted sociocultural perception of their and others’ bodies.

Women and men are subject to great pressure – determined by sexually objectifying media

content (Harper and Tiggemann, 2008) – to conform to an ideal body, indicating the adoption of an

appearance-based perspective of the self and others (Harrison and Fredrickson, 2003). In practice,

media stimuli – widely recognized as a reflection of the socio-cultural environment (Harris, 2004) –

continuously feature images of male and female ideal bodies, enhancing the evaluation of

themselves and others according to bodily appearance (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997). In sum,

objectification theory works as the theoretical framework for explaining the widespread, cultural

stereotype effects that emerge from the images of women and men depicted in media (Aubrey,

2006), and this biasing phenomenon works for everyone in every situation – also for recruiters

when making personnel selections.

According to objectification theory, men and women, affected by the bodies depicted in the

media, look at themselves and others according to two-dimensional views: i) observable, and ii)

non-observable physical characteristics (Noll and Fredrickson, 1998). In practice, the person who

looks at his/her own body, or that of others, tends to evaluate it according to five appearance-based

attributes and five competence-based attributes. The difference in the importance assigned to those

two sets of characteristics determines the level of objectification. In practice, the greater the

6
importance given to appearance-based attributes rather than competence-based attributes, the

greater the degree of objectification. It is worth noting in advance that among the five appearance-

based attributes, two are closely linked to the person’s weight and measurements. This highlights

that a weight stigma exists within the objectification framework, resulting in an overweight

individual not being viewed and/or sexually valued by the self and others (Oehlhof, 2012). A

person’s weight is, therefore, central to the attractiveness evaluating activity, often being the main

assessment driver of other physical appearances (Moss, 1992).

This mechanism of self and others’ bodily evaluation, divergently from the facial attractiveness

construct, happens when people are able to look at the whole body of themselves and others. This

process is very difficult to be avoided and is slightly different from the evaluation of people’s

physical attractiveness, even though these two are connected. As explained by Glick et al. (2005),

being physically attractive (usually in facial terms; Hosoda et al., 2003) does not mean being

objectified as well. This is also demonstrated in methodological terms, in that physical

attractiveness is only one of five physical appearance items included in the evaluation of

objectification (see Strelan and Hargreaves’ (2005) objectification questionnaire). Consequently, in

contrast to the general hypothesis that the most attractive candidates are also the most desired, the

most objectified people may be perceived as not having the right competences and may not match

the expectations of the raters (Glick et al., 2005; Rollero and Tartaglia, 2016). According to Glick

et al. (2005), this relationship differs, depending on the position for which candidates are evaluated;

for high-status positions, the most objectified people are not usually preferred, but are usually

chosen for low-status positions (Glick et al., 2005). Therefore, despite the two concepts of physical

attractiveness and objectification being perceived as similar, they are not; this is mainly because

objectification is a cultural stereotype derived from exposure to mass media contents and because it

emerges from a comparison between competence-based and appearance-based attributes, while

physical attractiveness does not. This was also empirically demonstrated by Rudman and Borgida

7
(1995) who found that equally attractive women were treated differently by male raters, depending

on their sexually motivated perception of those women.

The study by Weiderman and Hurst (1998), who seminally considered the relationship between

facial attractiveness, physical attractiveness and measures of sexual desirability, is worth

mentioning. In particular, they found that facial attractiveness of people was highly related to their

physical attractiveness and body size (in height/weight terms). In practice, facial attractiveness was

proved to be directly linked to three physical appearance items at the basis of objectification

(physical attractiveness, weight, measurement) and also to the main effect of the objectification

itself, thus being perceived as an object of desire. These results are confirmed by anthropological

studies that have continuously proved that facial attractiveness is linked to physical attractiveness

and sexual desirability (Davis et al., 2001; Musselman et al., 1996), showing that the greater the

facial attractiveness, the greater the physical attractiveness and the possibility to be ‘sexually

selected’.

The evaluation of others’ bodies, as happened in the study of facial attractiveness in the implicit

personality theory, recently gained importance in SDs because it is assumed to generate impressions

about personality characteristics. For example, Crandall (1994) found an inverse relationship

between the perception of employees’ body size and their perceived discipline and self-control.

Consequently, body size has an inverted U-shaped effect on the probability of being employed

(O’Brien et al., 2013; Pan et al., 2013); in practice, the thinner the candidate, the higher their related

hiring score. In sum, the cultural stereotype of assessing people on their bodily appearance,

emerging from the stimuli of the social environment, drives employers’ and recruiters’ choice in

evaluating candidates’ suitability for a job position (Atella et al., 2008).

Core Evaluations Theory

8
In SDs, interviewer and candidate try to offer a positive image of themselves, to attract the best

employee or obtain the best offer respectively. One frequently used influencing tactic by candidates

is to emphasize their positive personality dispositions (Gilmore and Ferris, 1989), because of

favourably affecting interviewers’ selection decisions (Anderson et al., 1999). Judge et al. (1998)

identified four factors (also called dispositions) as being the most studied in industrial psychology

since the 1960s: Self-Esteem – the overall value a person has with regard to himself/herself;

generalized Self-Efficacy – the self-estimation of being successful; Locus of Control – the belief in

controlling life’s factors; and Emotional Stability – the capacity to maintain a low neuroticism level.

These four dispositions have each been widely demonstrated as affecting SDs: perceived self-

esteem of candidates was found to be a predictor of job performance (Hollenbeck et al., 1988);

perceived confidence, perception of the person as having control of the situation, and perceived

emotional stability, were largely considered by recruiters as proxies of candidates’ ability to handle

any job situation (Silvester et al., 2002). In practice, recruiters’ perception of candidates’ four

dispositions affects their evaluations about the person-job fit.

Moreover, Judge and colleagues (1998; 2001) statistically demonstrated that the four highlighted

factors are significantly interrelated, and can be interpreted as a unique measure of core

(fundamental) evaluations (CEs) that people make about others, the world and themselves (in this

last case they are called core self-evaluations (CSEs)). In practice, the person who evaluates

himself/herself highly in these four core dispositions is confident in his/her own abilities and he/she

is consequently expected to have success in SDs (because of affecting recruiters’ perceptions) as

well as a positive job and life satisfaction (Judge and Bono, 2001). The value added of the CEs’

construct was in providing a broader approach that conceptually and methodologically facilitates,

through a unifying concept and single inventory, the investigation of the ‘human factor’ in the work

environment and in SDs (Judge et al., 2009). In particular, by adopting this construct, scholars

identified high scores in CEs as being related to high scores in work motivation (Erez and Judge,

2001), career success, and goal attainment, income and occupational prestige (Judge and Hurst,

9
2008). In practice, studies on CEs demonstrated that people who are highly confident in their own

abilities, and made a sustained effort over time towards their goals (in life and at work), are

motivated to pursue them and, consequently, obtain successful results in their career by gaining

impressive salaries and prestigious positions in society.

Judge et al. (2009) tried to understand the role of people’s facial attractiveness, educational

attainment (the highest level of education an individual has reached), general mental ability

(intelligence), and CEs, within this beneficial path. In particular, these scholars hypothesized, and

empirically demonstrated, that facial attractiveness is positively associated with CSEs and

education attainment, and both mediate the effects on income. General mental ability, instead, was

found to be positively linked to educational attainment, CEs and income. In sum, the more a person

is facially attractive, the greater his/her education and self-worth, which brings a higher income.

Contemporarily, a great general mental ability is the propellant for a high consideration of self and

for commitment towards goals. From that, it can be deduced that both facial attractiveness and

general mental ability steer people towards good impressions in SDs; and, “if one possesses both

intelligence and good looks, then all the better” (Judge et al., 2009; p. 749). However, the vast

majority of scholars who studied the effects of CEs in the work environment and SDs, including

Judge et al. (2009), have always investigated this construct in a self-assessed way and not by the

external perception of recruiters, thus limiting the implications for SDs.

Hypothesis Development

The perception of candidates’ bodies is the main predictor that drives employers’ decisions when

other conditions are equal (Pan et al., 2013). According to Meriläinen et al. (2015), recruiters

unconsciously observe candidates’ bodies because they convey their desirable personality

dispositions, consequently influencing their hiring score (Kantor et al., 2015). Using a similar

10
mechanism, Judge et al. (2009) found that people with great facial attractiveness have greater

chances to be hired and command a higher income, thanks to the mediation effect of their CEs.

Similarly, people generally speculate about others’ inner characteristics when looking at their

bodily appearance, such as attributing high levels of sociability and social status to people with

attractive bodies (Langlois et al., 2000). Crandall (1994) found that heavy people, who are usually

lowly objectified (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997), are perceived as not having strong discipline and

self-control, two features that can be related to self-efficacy (Bandura, 2006) and emotional stability

(Friese and Wanke, 2014) underlined by the CEs construct. Consequently, perception of these

personality dispositions affects candidates’ hiring score because they are predictors of candidates’

job satisfaction and job performance (Judge et al., 1998; 2001). Accordingly:

Hypothesis 1: The core evaluations of candidates mediate the relationship between their

objectification and hiring score.

Physical attractiveness is one of the items considered in the objectification construct and

questionnaire (Fredrickson et al., 1998; Strelan and Hargreaves, 2005); therefore, it can

increase/decrease the objectification score. Facial attractiveness, usually highly correlated with

physical attractiveness and part of people’s evaluation of others’ bodies (Hönekopp et al., 2004),

works as an external item (to the objectification questionnaire) that can amplify/reduce the

objectification score. Moreover, it has been widely demonstrated that people with very high facial

attractiveness have greater CEs scores and, consequently, greater job performance (which works as

a predictor for employability; Judge et al., 1998; 2001) than people with low facial attractiveness

(Judge et al., 2009). Accordingly:

11
Hypothesis 2: Facial attractiveness of candidates moderates the relationship between their

objectification and core evaluations such that this relationship is stronger for candidates with higher

facial attractiveness.

___________________

Please insert Figure 1 about here

___________________

Method

Participants. 150 personnel selection professionals (75 male, 75 female, Average Age=35.2 years,

Standard Deviation (SD)=5.3 years) were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and were

compensated $3 each. Participants had English as their mother tongue and were Caucasian. Before

undertaking the experiment with professionals, a pre-test involving a sample of 130 business

administration graduates was conducted to select the paper-based candidates – on the basis of their

objectification – to be included in the stimulus material of the experiment and to validate the whole

experimental procedure. Another sample of 105 business administration graduates also involved

testing the validity of the CEs’ measure against the CSEs’ original measure.

Experimental Design and Procedure. At the beginning of the experiment, the researcher explained

the interest in studying SDs, as done by previous experimenters (e.g., Heilman and Saruwatari,

1979). Participants were aware from the beginning that they were selecting candidates for a job

position. They were provided with the Trait Objectification Questionnaire (TOQ), four bipolar

adjectives which are at the base of CEs theory, and a 7-point Likert scale to assess candidates’

facial attractiveness. Subsequently, participants were asked to define the hiring score for each

candidate. Participants were made aware from the beginning that all candidates had all the

12
requirements for the position (aged 26, an MBA, one year’s experience in the same position, and

English fluency), and that their task-related characteristics matched the task requirements for the

position. The participants were debriefed by explaining the aim of the study, any questions were

answered, and they were thanked for participating. The steps of this experimental protocol have

been well-established by scholars over the years (Dipboye et al., 1975; Heilman and Saruwatari,

1979; Jackson, 1983; Johnson et al., 2014).

Stimulus material. Six candidates (three of each sex) for an administrative position in a company

were proposed to respondents and a whole picture of each candidate provided. The six pictures

were selected in the pre-test phase according to the following procedure: the researcher chose 50

pictures (25 of each sex) from an online database, then the pictures were rated through the TOQ by

a sample of 130 business administration graduates. All those in the pictures were Caucasian, upright

and positioned against a white background, business-casual dressed and with no particular facial

expressions, gestures or wearing of accessories (i.e., glasses). Six pictures (three of each sex)

identifying people with the highest (Mwoman=9.00, SD=2.92; Mman=11.50, SD=2.20), lowest

(Mwoman=-6.00, SD=1.88; Mman=-5.00, SD=1.80) and ‘normal’ (Mwoman=3.11, SD=1.91; Mman=2.93,

SD=1.18) value of objectification were selected.

The number of pictures selected for each category (three) is in line with previous research (Lee

et al., 2015). As done by scholars in similar experiments (Johnson et al., 2014), the pictures of the

candidates, later given to the recruiters in the experimental study, were chosen according to the SD

of the assigned objectification. The most attractive candidate was chosen as the picture of the one

far above the mean of the ratings of objectification; the picture of the least attractive was the one far

below the mean. The picture of the ‘normal’ candidate was chosen by calculating the closest value

to the midpoint of a line segment in which the extremes are the highest and lowest. The addition of

the neutral group with an average level of objectification was done to fill the gap highlighted by

Morrow (1990) for which no groups, with an average level of attractiveness, had been considered in

13
previous research. With the inclusion of this third group it was possible to test the reaction of

recruiters to both the normally objectified and extremely objectified candidates.

In order not to bias the study because of other variables, the six candidates selected due to their

objectification were also assessed on their perceived intelligence, education, and age, to ensure that

the candidates shown in the pictures were similar (except for objectification). Those control

variables were assessed through a Likert scale (1=low to 7=high). Among the selected candidates,

no significant difference in the mean (M) of these control variables was encountered

(Mintelligence=3.3, SD=1.0, p>0.05; Meducation=3.4, SD=0.90, p>0.05; Mage=3.6 SD=1.12, p>0.05).

Job description. In the pre-test phase, following Beehr and Gilmore (1982), the same sample of

business administration graduates (N=130) was asked to read the job description for an

administrative position and rate on a 7-point Likert scale (from 1=strongly disagree, to 7=strongly

agree) how much they agreed with the following: ‘attractive employees do this job better than

unattractive ones’. The same sample was asked, after having been instructed on the meaning of

masculine and feminine job characteristics, to rate (on the same 7-point scale) an administrative job

as a position more suitable for people with masculine or feminine job characteristics (two different

questions). The results showed no agreement with the first proposition (M=1.53, SD=0.36) and

identified this job as neutral (Mmasculinity=1.20, SD=0.48; Mfemininity=1.12, SD=0.81), which was

considered useful, in this case, to isolate the variables being investigated without being influenced

by the job description.

Measures

Objectification. With regard to assessing objectification, the TOQ was administered (Strelan and

Hargreaves, 2005). In this questionnaire, respondents were asked to rank in order from 1 (the least

14
impact) to 10 (the most impact), the physical attributes of six candidates – five on physical

appearance (physical attractiveness, weight, sex appeal, measurement (chest/waist/hips), and

muscle tone) and five on physical competence (muscular strength, physical coordination, stamina,

physical fitness, and physical energy level) – by how important those attributes are while looking at

the candidates. Scores were computed by the sum of the ranks for the appearance and competence

attributes separately, and then by computing a difference score. Scores ranged from +25 (highest) to

-25 (lowest). The questionnaire used here is Strelan and Hargreaves’ (2005) slightly modified

version of the TOQ (i.e., questions are posed in an active rather than a passive way), which has

proved to be consistent (Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .87 to .91; Fredrickson et al., 1998), and

valid (Noll and Fredrickson, 1998).

Facial Attractiveness. Respondents were asked to rank the facial attractiveness of the six candidates

previously chosen in the pre-test according to their objectification, on a separate sheet in which only

faces (cut and zoomed from the whole body pictures) were shown. As with previous works (Hosoda

et al., 2003; Judge et al., 2009), this ranking was based on a 7-point Likert scale (from 1=extremely

low attractiveness, to 7=extremely high attractiveness).

Core evaluations. In this study, four bipolar adjectives measured through a 9-point rating scale have

been used to identify the raters’ perception of candidates: Esteem, Efficacy, Locus of Control, and

Emotional Stability. This method of measuring the perception of the self-concept of others is in line

with previous studies (e.g., Friborg et al., 2006); bipolar adjectives have frequently been applied for

discovering the perception of raters of candidates’ attributes (Heilman and Saruwatari, 1979). The

variables at the base of the four bipolar adjectives are the same as for the assessment of CSEs

(Judge et al., 2003) investigated by the Core Self-Evaluations Scale (CSES) questionnaire that has

proved to be reliable – looking both at internal consistency (Cronbach’s alphas are, on average, .84)

and test-retest reliability (r=.81 over a 3-month period) – and valid (Judge et al., 2004). In this

15
work, the 9-point rating scale ranges from -4 (lowest value) to +4 (highest value) with 0

representing the centre of the scale. The four pairs of bipolar adjectives at the base of this scale are

the following: “confident-unconfident”, “effective-ineffective”, “controlling-controlled”, and

“balanced-neurotic”. The meaning of these four pairs of bipolar adjectives were carefully explained

before starting the laboratory experiment using the definitions given by Judge and Bono (2001)

about the four dispositions that these pairs of adjectives are expected to measure.

A sample of 105 business administration graduates was therefore involved to test the convergent

validity of the adopted CEs measure (the four bipolar adjectives) against the original CSES

questionnaire. Following Campbell and Fiske (1959), the convergence of the two methods has been

tested by using the Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix (MTMM), which permits investigation of the

validity of different measures to study the same traits. According to this procedure, the 105

graduates rated their CEs according to both the CSES questionnaire and the four bipolar adjectives.

The items’ scores within the CSES questionnaire were summed – paying attention to the reverse

scores – according to the trait they are expected to measure, and divided by three (the number of

items for each trait), to obtain an average value for each trait and permit the application of the

MTMM to those traits.

___________________

Please insert Table 1 about here

___________________

Data in Table 1 demonstrate that the two measures of the CEs (four bipolar adjectives and CSES

questionnaire), are highly inter-correlated; the average of the validity diagonal (emboldened) is

around 0.80, proving their convergent validity.

16
Hiring score. Following previous literature (Dipboye et al., 1975; Hosoda et al., 2003; Jackson,

1983), participants rated candidates on the hiring scores through a 7-point Likert scale (ranging

from 1=extremely low intention, to 7=extremely high intention to hire that candidate).

Data analysis. According to hypothesis 1, objectification is hypothesized as the independent

variable that affects hiring scores (dependent variable) through the mediation of CEs. From that, a

mediation analysis was conducted according to the procedure highlighted by Aiken and West

(1991). Following those authors, all the variables categorized as continuous were centred to avoid

multicollinearity. To test hypothesis 1, Preacher et al.’s (2007) SPSS macro was used, as done by

other scholars (Baron and Kenny, 1986). In particular, this macro helps in estimating the indirect

effects through the Sobel test and bootstrap approach. Even if there is a normal distribution of data,

the bootstrapping approach is contemporarily used, as also done by other scholars when testing

mediation models (Ma and Gal, 2016), because the Sobel test is – especially for smaller samples –

lower in power and less rigorous compared to bootstrapping (Preacher et al., 2007).

According to hypothesis 2, facial attractiveness is the other independent variable of the model that

moderates the relationship between objectification and CEs. From that, an analysis of the indirect

effect of objectification on the hiring score through CEs was conducted. Moreover, following Aiken

and West (1991), the moderation effect at different levels of CEs (one SD above or below the mean

of facial attractiveness) is further depicted in a plot.

Findings

Preliminary analysis

17
The Pearson’s correlation analysis (not shown here), that took into account the values of the

objectification of candidates and their facial attractiveness, demonstrated a significant but moderate

positive correlation between those two items (r=.38, n=150, p=.00). This provided initial support

for the moderation relationship previously hypothesized. Moreover, objectification and CEs were

moderately correlated (r=.41, n=150, p=.00), while the latter and hiring score were slightly

correlated (r=.21, n=150, p=.00). The Shapiro-Wilk test had a significance level greater than 0.05

for all the investigated variables.

Mediation analysis

Table 2 shows that objectification was positively associated with CEs (B=.33, p=.00), and CEs were

positively associated with the hiring score (B=.24, p=.00), yielding an indirect effect on the hiring

score (.10).

___________________

Please insert Table 2 about here

___________________

Results show that the total effect of the independent variable (objectification) on the dependent

variable (hiring score) is mainly transmitted through the mediator variable (CEs). The total effect of

the mediation model (.122) – which includes the indirect and direct effects – is mainly generated by

the indirect effect (.112); this means that the mediation of CEs between objectification and the

hiring score explains more than the direct effect between objectification and the assigned hiring

score. The Sobel test (the tool used to test a mediation effect when data have normal distribution),

supports the significance of the indirect effect (Effect size=-.10, z=-2.54 with 95% Confidence

Interval which did not contain zero). Also the bootstrap results, at a 95% bias corrected Confidence

Interval, did not contain zero (-.14, -.05). In sum, both the Sobel test and the bootstrap test fully

18
support Hypothesis 1 – thus, the indirect effect is statistically significant and greater than the direct

effect.

It is also important, when investigating mediation models, to discuss the magnitude of the effect

sizes. Following Fairchild et al. (2009) and Kenny (2016), who state that standard values of the

effect size (“the degree to which the null hypothesis is false”, Cohen, 1988, p. 10) must be squared

because the indirect effect is a product of two effects, the resulting effect size of the presented study

may be considered as medium. The magnitude of the effect sizes (not large in this case) should be

read, according to Durlak (2009), by looking at the research design of the study. In this regard, one

main explanation of the low (according to Cohen, 1988) or medium (according to Kenny, 2016)

effect sizes of this analysis may be found in the use of the four bipolar adjectives for the study of

the mediator variable, and implemented for the study of the CEs in an active and easy way. The

same reasoning may be applied to the study of the facial attractiveness construct, despite Likert

scales having been the most diffuse approach to investigate this variable in previous/similar works

(Hosoda et al., 2003; Judge et al., 2009). Durlak (2009) suggests that objective and multiple

measures for a variable may bring higher effect sizes. Another research design element that may

have altered the effect sizes is the sample size; according to Preacher and Kelley (2011) effect sizes

tend to decrease as the sample size increases.

Moderated mediation

Table 3 shows that objectification and facial attractiveness were significantly related to CEs (β=.23,

p<.01). This evidence positively supports hypothesis 2.

___________________

Please insert Table 3 about here

19
 ___________________

Figure 2 shows that the moderation pattern was as expected; indeed, the relationship between

objectification and CEs was stronger for high than for low scores in facial attractiveness, therefore

Hypothesis 2 can be considered as fully supported.

___________________

Please insert Figure 2 about here

___________________

The moderator variable, facial attractiveness, amplifies the magnitude of the relationship between

objectification and CEs, which in turn affects the hiring score. In particular, high facial

attractiveness leads to a higher perception of CEs than low facial attractiveness. This effect is

higher for people who have high scores in facial attractiveness and low objectification, rather than

for people who are facially attractive and highly objectified.

Discussion and Implications

This work offers a contribution to the debate about the distortional effect caused by the perception

of recruiters of candidates’ overall attractiveness – facial and bodily – in SDs. It answers other

scholars’ calls to define in a better way the role played by candidates’ overall attractiveness and its

operationalization (Langlois et al., 2000; Morrow, 1990), as well as defining its influence on the

perceived personal characteristics (Crandal, 1994; Pan et al., 2013). This is aimed at explaining

why, when other conditions are equal, some people are rated more highly as efficient, confident or

emotionally stable – resulting in being regarded as more employable.

20
 As theorized, candidates’ internal dispositions (i.e. CEs) worked as a mediator between

objectification and the hiring score assigned to candidates, confirming the previous assumptions

based on the already identified connections between facial attractiveness and CEs (Judge et al.,

2009). Results mainly highlight that the objectification affects the mediator (CEs) which in turn

influences the assigned hiring score to candidates. This model, supporting H1, explains how the

perception of recruiters on candidates’ objectification influences their impressions of the ratees’

dispositions that are usually regarded as desirable for the workplace (Judge et al., 2009). This result

sheds light on the mechanism behind the biasing role that is played by candidates’ objectification in

SDs, as claimed by recent literature (Pan et al., 2013). However, this mechanism, based on the

influence of objectification on CEs, and then on the assigned hiring scores, can be better understood

if it includes the overall attractiveness of candidates – thus, also the facial attractiveness variable.

Facial attractiveness of candidates has been demonstrated here to work as a moderator in the

relationship between objectification and CEs. Results show, this relationship and the effects on the

assigned hiring score are generally stronger when the candidate is highly ranked in terms of facial

attractiveness. If candidates are ranked as having low facial attractiveness and are highly

objectified, they are perceived as having better internal dispositions than candidates with low facial

attractiveness and low objectification. This result reinforces older assumptions that candidates with

greater facial attractiveness have a greater possibility of being hired, because they are perceived as

highly confident in their own abilities (Dipboye et al., 1975; Jackson, 1983). However, having

extreme attractiveness – in facial and bodily terms – may be detrimental to the perception of

recruiters of their CEs. In practice, evidence says that candidates who are highly objectified and

also have high facial attractiveness are perceived – by recruiters – as having lower grades of CEs

than candidates who are scarcely objectified and have great facial attractiveness. This inverted

effect of the objectification and facial attractiveness variables, when both reach a peak, contradicts

the traditional concept of ‘what is beautiful is good’ (Dion et al., 1972), and has been explained as

the so-called ‘beauty is beastly effect’ (Heilman and Saruwatari, 1979; Johnson et al., 2014), by

21
which attractive people are considered (by raters) as unsuitable for some vacancies, because their

excessive attractiveness led recruiters to perceive their inner personality traits as not matching the

job requirements. Attractiveness, therefore, works according to both mechanisms of the ‘what is

beautiful is good’ and ‘beauty is beastly effect’. Those two effects do not exclude each other but are

complementary, depending on the intertwined grades of those variables.

In sum, raters, when the quality of ratees’ CV is the same, are biased in their evaluation of

candidates’ suitability for a position by the different levels of candidates’ body and facial

attractiveness; those two affect the perceived candidates’ internal dispositions, which in turn affects

the assigned hiring score – due to the relevance of those dispositions in estimating candidates’ job

performance. Evidence of the (low) correlation between objectification and facial attractiveness as

well as the detrimental effect of having extreme positive values of both variables, reinforces the

assumption that these two concepts are linked, but they also underline different inter-related

phenomena. Being physically attractive does not automatically mean being perceived as a sexual

object (Glick et al., 2005; Rollero and Tartaglia, 2016; Rudman and Borgida, 1995).

From a methodological point of view, through the adoption of the objectification theory lens, the

two main problems of the body attractiveness construct, its operationalization and

conceptualization, are addressed (Morrow, 1990). In the previous literature, the distortional role of

candidates’ body attractiveness has always been studied through different (e.g. using the facial

attractiveness construct) and not psychologically validated scales with a different meaning

(Heilman and Saruwatari, 1979; Johnson et al., 2014; Paustian-Underdahl and Slattery Walker,

2016). The objectification construct has the competitive edge of emerging from a real and current

phenomenon based on a cultural stereotype, for which distortional effects have been studied in

different psychological contexts brought to a consolidated and validated methodology.

The adoption of the CEs theory helps in studying the four dispositions at the base of the

consideration of the self and others in SDs. This construct offers a solid base for the investigation of

the internal dispositions that drive job satisfaction and job performance – to which great attention is

22
paid by recruiters. As demonstrated by different contributions in this direction (e.g. Judge et al.,

1998; 2000), people who possess high levels of CEs are top performers in their jobs, obtaining both

work and life success. Therefore, those dispositions are particularly considered by recruiters in

order to assess which candidates may give the most because of being pushed by their internal

levers. However, as suggested by the results of the moderated mediation model, the recruiters’

perception of those dispositions is driven by the objectification and facial attractiveness of

candidates. In practice, the recruiter may be biased from the first moment he/she gazes at the

candidate, making a prejudiced deduction of his/her internal qualities and related ability to obtain

work success, and conditioning the assigned hiring score.

However, even if the results of this work are supportive, they suffer from some limitations. One

of those is in the use of the four bipolar adjectives for investigating the perceived CEs and in the use

of a Likert scale for assessing the perceived facial attractiveness. The two tools may have

undermined the effect sizes of the proposed moderated mediation model. The use of more

psychometrically validated tools for the study of facial attractiveness (such as looking at facial

proportions – Musselman et al., 1996) and CEs (using a questionnaire rather than pairs of

adjectives), may have carried a higher magnitude of results. Also the use of a comparatively small

sample may have been detrimental to the effect sizes of the presented study.

From what has been said, this contribution may help to clarify the causes of people

discrimination in SDs based on candidates’ attractiveness (facial and bodily). Despite the fact that it

has already been established in prior research that the size of the body causes distortions, to some

extent, in the perception of recruiters about candidates’ personalities and their employability

(O’Brien et al., 2013), it was not clarified which constructs, based on the candidates’ body

perception, act within this process and what their distortional effects are. From that, an initial

answer is given here as to how a rater is differently biased when gazing at candidates with similar

facial attractiveness. Indeed, according to the results of this study, the level of objectification, which

can be low for one candidate and high for another, results in different choices.

23
 The following suggestions may be taken from this work. To avoid the distortion that derives

from the ‘objectification effect’ (falling for candidates who are the most objectified), recruiters

should increase the amount of information about candidates (looking at CVs, personality test scores,

etc.), which has been demonstrated as being a deterrent to those biases (Bull and Rumsey, 1988).

Indeed, as also reported by decision making scholars (e.g. Abatecola, 2014; Cristofaro, 2017a;

2017b), increasing the amount of information may be a good strategy when facing distortions that

may affect important business processes. This is also in line with Davison et al.’s (2012)

recommendations, who advise standardising the data collection process, especially when using

Internet sources, in order to formally collect (and rate only) job-related information. For candidates,

setting a higher level of privacy on their social network profiles could be useful but, equally, may

be perceived as hiding something; either way, the most efficient strategy is to increase the quality of

the CV (Watkins and Johnston, 2000). Finally, showing a great level of CEs would be advantageous

in SDs; highlighting confidence, and effective, controlled and balanced personality features are

perceived as having high motivation and being inclined towards great job performance. For

researchers, if they do not consider the biasing role of candidates’ entire attractiveness (facial and

bodily) in SDs, the discrimination of candidates may be wrongly conceptualized – resulting in

wrong directions being taken in research and practice.

Following the suggestion by Watkins and Johnston (2000), it may be interesting to study the

differences between the moments in which recruiters enhance their first impressions about the

objectification of the candidate and the perceived CEs with other pieces of information derived

from their CV, experience, and interests, in order to study if this new information really changes

their first thoughts. Moreover, because the objectification phenomenon derives from being subject

to sexual media content (Harper and Tiggemann, 2008), which differs culture by culture (Harris,

2004), stereotypes change according to the specific institutional environment in which people are

embedded. It would be interesting to research the entire candidates’ attractiveness effect on the

recruiters’ perception of applicants’ CEs within cross-cultural SDs. This would allow identifying

24
the biasing effect of attractiveness – on recruiters – which is spread by applicants who come from

different ethnic backgrounds that do not match raters’ stereotypes (although these candidates are

perceived as extremely beautiful in their own country). In this case, further research may study

which effect prevails when applicants may be discriminated against (or favoured) because of their

attractiveness and/or ethnicity.

Finally, due to the simplicity of reproducing the chosen environment mediated by social media

platforms, it would be more fruitful (and easier) to carry out field experiments where recruiters – in

a more real context – may actually experience a daily situation and behave as they really do, solving

the generalizability problem highlighted by Morrow (1990).

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the editor and anonymous reviewers of this journal for their precious comments.

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