Bones, Clara Maresa (2025) The Role of Target Attractiveness and Observer Gender in Harm Perception. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
What determines how we perceive someone’s harm? While we like to assume our social judgements to be fair, research indicates that they are often subject to subtle biases, including those tied to physical appearances. One such attractiveness bias suggests that attractive individuals are perceived and treated more favorably, even in contexts involving harm. Studies have shown that attractive victims are evaluated as more credible and receive greater support than unattractive victims, while questioning whether the observer’s gender shapes the extent of this bias. Yet, how this attractiveness bias operates in more ambiguous, workplace settings remains unclear. Aiming to bridge this research gap, the present thesis investigates how a female target’s physical attractiveness affects perceptions of harm severity and support for punishment, and whether the observer’s gender moderates these effects. Using a between-subjects, online vignette-based experiment among predominantly female university students, participants (N = 144) evaluated allegations of social exclusion at work reported by a woman, described as either attractive or unattractive in a short, written scenario. Contrary to expectations, no significant effects were found for target’s attractiveness, observer’s gender, or their interaction. Although a marginal trend suggested attractive targets to be evaluated as experiencing more severe harm, neither target’s attractiveness nor observer’s gender significantly shaped moral judgements. These results challenge the assumption of appearance-based biases to universally influence social and harm perceptions. Instead, findings hint at a context dependency of this bias, perhaps diminishing its influence in subtle scenarios. Keywords: attractiveness bias, gender differences, harm perception, moral judgements, workplace exclusion
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Supervisor name: | Graso, M. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Jul 2025 11:02 |
| Last Modified: | 16 Jul 2025 11:02 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5553 |
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