Effects of Beauty Filter on Job Qualification

Conjoint Analysis experiment performed on Qualtrics.

Research Question

Do beauty face filters affect the perception of job qualification?

Previous Research

✓ Makeup makes women seem more competent¹

✓ Physically-attractive people are seen as more competent and thus paid more²

X qualifications, rather than attractiveness, had a greater influence on a manager’s perception of the candidate’s suitability³

Our Hypothesis

Face filters improve the perception of one’s job qualifications, which could be beneficial when seeking job opportunities.

More specifically, effects are more prominent in women than in men and also in front-facing roles than in back-facing roles.

Survey Details

Control: 12 candidate photos, unedited

Treatment: 12 candidate photos (same as control), but FaceTuned to the same degree

Randomization of filtered vs. unfiltered headshot, sex, ethnicity, years of experience, job type and college per candidate.


Measurement Units

People (survey takers) from MTurk

  • Located in the US

  • Each person can only take it once

Respondent Demographic (N = 407)

  • 62% males (n = 251)

  • 88% white (n = 357)


Outcome Measures


Average Treatment Effect (ATE) of individual features on the probability that a candidate will be chosen, averaging across all other features

  • Estimated using linear regression

  • Coefficients between 0 and 1, represent change in probability of being chosen

CONSORT Document

Results

Full Data Regressions. (1) Baseline model: effect of filter on probability being chosen. (2) Full model: effect of filter, gender, experience, front-facing roles, top colleges on the probability of being chosen. (3) Full model with interaction effects: full model + interactions on filter & gender an filter & front-facing job

Constant: unfiltered, female, non-White, 5 years of experience, top 50-100 college

  • 43.4% chance of being chosen.


Interpretation:

  • Significant effects:

    • Ethnicity (white) and years of experience (more) have a significant impact on being chosen across all models

  • No significant effect of filter on candidates being chosen (0.012)

    • Greater effect of filters when interacted with gender and front-facing role (0.046)

  • (Non-significant) interactions

    • Lower chance of being chosen if candidate is male w/ a filtered photo (compared to baseline)

    • Higher chance of being chosen if candidate is applying for a front-facing role & photo is filtered (compared to baseline)


Visualization of descriptive marginal means (MMs). Each feature is in a different color. Vertical axis 0 represents baseline level, and 95% confidence intervals shown. Statistically significant effects demarcated in dark orange.

REFERENCES

¹ Klatt, J., Eimler, S. C., & Krämer, N. C. (2016). Makeup your mind: The impact of styling on perceived competence and warmth of female leaders. The Journal of Social Psychology, 156(5), 483–497. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2015.1129303

² Busetta, G., Fiorillo, F. & Palomba, G. The impact of attractiveness on job opportunities in Italy: a gender field experiment. Econ Polit 38, 171–201 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40888-020-00194-5

³ Ford, R., Price, G., Hofmeyr, K. B., & Chiba, M. (2018). Brains versus beauty in the knowledge economy. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 16. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajhrm.v16i0.897