Are the beautiful good in Hollywood? An investigation of the beauty-and-goodness stereotype on film

Physically attractive individuals are often viewed more favorably than unat tractive people on dimensions that are weakly related or unrelated to physi cal looks, such as intelligence, sociability, and morality. Our study inves tigated the role of U.S. films in this "beauty-and-goodness" stereotype. In Study 1, we established that attractive characters were portrayed more fav orably than unattractive characters on multiple dimensions (e.g., intellige nce, friendliness) across a random sample from 5 decades of top-grossing fi lms. The link between beauty and positive characteristics was stable across time periods, character sex, and characters' centrality to the plot. Study 2 established that exposure to highly stereotyped films can elicit stronge r beauty-and-goodness stereotyping. Participants watching a highly biased f ilm subsequently showed greater favoritism toward an attractive graduate sc hool candidate (compared with ratings of an unattractive candidate) than pa rticipants viewing a less biased film.