Does a Person’s Attractiveness Influence Our Tendency to Get to Know Them?

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of attractiveness on trust and decision-making. Previous research has shown that attractive people appear more trustworthy, and individuals mainly rely on facial stimuli for these judgements. We were interested to see whether when people have the chance to get a description of a face, do they still make their decision based only on visual attractiveness or do they pay attention to the description. We used the trust game, in which players are given an amount of money each round and they decide how much to transfer to another player. We modified the trust game to implement facial stimuli for hypothetical players and a hint taking option, where participants could choose if they wanted to spend money for a description of the facial stimuli before making financial decisions. This study used a repeated measures design and was conducted through an online survey using snowball sampling (N = 214). We hypothesized that participants would be more likely to ask for a hint when shown a picture of a less attractive person; however, we found the opposite only in male participants. In other words, only male participants were more likely to choose a hint for more attractive faces, which was interpreted as interest rather than caution to trust. These findings suggest that factors other than attractiveness can play a role in decisions to trust unknown individuals. Further research should investigate gender differences in hint taking and practice racial matching of participants and stimuli.