Pretty Hurts

I apologize as the title may have mislead you into thinking this post would be about Beyonce and her song, “Pretty Hurts.” However, you have been deceived, as this will focus on how pretty people can get away with pretty much everything, that is, including crime.

Have you seen the man in this picture? It is perhaps one of the most viral mugshots that has been distributed around the Facebook, and people have been raving over Jeremy Meek’s good looks, thus, creating controversy among those who have laid eyes upon it because… is he not too beautiful to be in prison? Even then, his looks would cause a swarm of car accidents were he to walk freely down the streets, so isn’t it better off for everyone for him to be imprisoned? The comments range from marriage proposals, to people expressing their desire to go to prison, to disappointment in society. Surely, that photo has gathered over 100k likes and 26k comments as of today.

This phenomenon is in fact called the “halo effect” in which the attractiveness of an individual will unconsciously influence how we view the person as a whole; we will view them as more talented, more kind, more honest and more intelligent. This term was coined by Edward Thorndike and refers to the perception of a person having a halo, similarly to an angel. Without being aware of it, we assign more favorable qualities to those we deem more attractive. Unfortunately, this cognitive bias goes both ways: there is a “reverse halo effect” in which we judge less attractive people (to the eye of the beholder!) based on their looks, and these impressions have a lasting effect, which can be detrimental in the justice system.

Can good-looking people really get away with anything? How can someone’s appearance be a valid measure of their verdict? Situational factors must play a role in court as well, but there have been several research studies that report a correlation between attractiveness and sentences. For example, when the nature of the crime is unrelated to physical appearance, a more attractive defendant would get a more lenient sentence than a less attractive one.

Because of this bias towards attractive people and bias against less attractive people, children can grow up having less confidence and do worse in school their social life compared to their better looking peers, which can lead them into the wrong direction. What can this teach our children, when the future looks so bleak because of something mainly due to genetics and SES?

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