Physical attractiveness and the assessment of psychologists competence

Živičnjak, Nikolina. (2016). Physical attractiveness and the assessment of psychologists competence. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Buško, Vesna].

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate whether the physical attractiveness of psychologist will be connected to the assessment of his/her competence, and to check if and how this connection will differ based on the sex of the stimulus person and the sex of subject. Study consisted of two parts and both surveys were conducted online. 402 people participated in pre-research, and the task of respondents was to assess the attractiveness of 28 people (14 male and 14 female) on a scale of 1-7. Based on the results, four pictures were selected for the main study: most attractive man and woman and the least attractive man and woman. The main part of the study involved 519 people (238 male and 281 female), and the task of respondents was to assess the depicted person on the 25 items that represent competencies of psychologists. Three-way (2x2x2) ANOVA was conducted, and the results showed the existence of major effects of attractiveness of stimulus person and sex of the subject and interaction between attractiveness and sex of the stimulus person. Attractive people are generally assessed as more competent than less attractive individuals, and woman give larger assessments of competence than men, regardless of who they are assessing. When it comes to unattractive people, sex of the stimulus person proved to be significant: unattractive man is assessed as significantly more competent compared to unattractive woman

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