Negativity Bias in Person Perception: Exploring the Reverse Side of the ‘What Is Beautiful Is Good’ Stereotype in Women

According to the attractiveness halo effect, global person perceptions are biased by physical attractiveness. Few studies have shown similar influences by unattractiveness, with unattractive people being ascribed negative attributes. This preregistered study compared the strength of (positive) attractiveness halo effects with negative halo effects employing target samples from two phenotypically distinct populations. Facial photos of 154 German and 149 Brazilian women were judged separately for their attractiveness, social (in-)competence, intellectual (in-)competence, and emotional (in-)stability by 168 female German raters. Results showed moderate-to-strong positive associations of perceived attractiveness with all three positively framed attributes, and moderate-to-strong negative correlations with all three negatively framed attributes, with the latter negative halo effects being stronger than (positive) attractiveness halo effects only in some cases. Negative halo effects were stronger for Brazilian compared to German targets. In exploratory analyses, judgements of social competence, intellectual competence, and emotional stability were in most cases significantly more negative for low- than for medium-attractiveness targets, than they were positive for high- than for medium-attractiveness targets. These findings provide a systematic comparison of positive and negative halo effects, revealing that negative biases for unattractive individuals can be at least as pronounced as positive biases for attractive individuals. These effects also mostly generalise across German and Brazilian faces, extending evidence on halo effects beyond single-population samples.