Introduction

Interpersonal expectations are often based on initial impressions of a target person. Initial impressions, in turn, depend in part on the target's appearance, including his or her level of physical attractiveness. Since the early work of Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) on the “What is beautiful is good” phenomenon, numerous studies have shown that individuals high in physical attractiveness elicit more favorable impressions than individuals low in physical attractiveness (for reviews, see Berscheid & Walster, 1974; Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986; Sorrel & Nowack, 1981). There is, in fact, some indication that the physical attractiveness stereotype may act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid (1977) showed that male perceivers who interacted over the phone with women they believed (as a result of experimental manipulation) to be physically attractive behaved in a manner that was more sociable, independent, sexually warm, and so on, than perceivers who believed the women to be unattractive. More important, female targets who were perceived to be physically attractive behaved in a manner that was more friendly, likeable, and so on, than female targets who were perceived to be unattractive. Evidently, the physical attractiveness stereotype channeled the interaction so as to influence social reality.

Can physical attractiveness also act as a self-fulfilling prophecy in real life? There are reasons to believe that the answer is yes. After all, real life provides a more continuous differential treatment of attractive and unattractive targets than does a single experiment.