People prefer psychotherapists with attractive faces, study finds

A recent study asking participants to choose psychotherapists from a mockup of a professional therapist directory found that they are more likely to choose therapists with more attractive faces, even when trustworthiness and competence were controlled for. Profiles with unattractive faces and those with no profile pictures were equally likely to be chosen. The paper was published in Psychotherapy Research.

Selecting a psychotherapist is a complex but important decision influenced by multiple factors. It is rarely based on professional qualifications alone. People tend to also consider the therapist’s approach, cost, location, age, sex, clothing, and even physical appearance. These judgments typically begin before the first conversation, particularly when therapists are selected through online profiles containing little more than a photograph and a brief description.

Because faces attract attention and rapidly generate impressions, prospective clients may infer qualities such as competence, warmth, morality, and trustworthiness from facial features. Attractive therapists may benefit from a “beautiful is good” halo effect, in which a favorable judgment of appearance influences evaluations of unrelated professional qualities. Such first impressions may also shape how later information is interpreted, especially when people feel uncertain about whether an unfamiliar therapist will understand their problems.

Study author Antonio Olivera-La Rosa and his colleagues note that it appears that patients may use the psychotherapist’s facial appearance as a source of information to assess his/her suitability. This tendency to rely on facial cues may be particularly pronounced when selecting a psychotherapist from online directories. Study authors were particularly interested in finding out whether psychotherapists with attractive faces are more likely to be selected.

They also wanted to know how the likelihood of being chosen with an attractive face compares to the likelihood of being chosen when the profile does not have a profile picture. In other words, they wanted to know whether the effect of attractiveness is a preference for attractive faces or avoidance of unattractive ones. Finally, study authors examined whether clients’ and therapists’ sex and sexual preferences moderate the effects of facial attractiveness.

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Participants were 108 university students from Colombia and Peru, from different study levels, recruited through internal emails and social networking. Their average age was 32 years. 63 of them were women. 14% of participants reported being currently in psychotherapy and 55% reported having undergone psychotherapy in the past.

Study authors selected 32 photos of faces from the 10k US Adult Faces Database. Half of the faces were female, half were male. The selected faces were either categorized as attractive or unattractive, in equal numbers. All faces displayed friendly expressions. All faces were chosen to signal average trustworthiness (thereby controlling any effects trustworthiness might have on participants’ decisions). Study authors conducted a small pilot study to assign ages to the faces.

Study authors used these photos to create a mockup of an online directory of psychotherapists. Each profile mockup featured one of the photos presented as a photo of a therapist, his/her name, professional role, sex, age, and a competence score operationalized as patients’ star ratings. There were also profiles without a profile picture. Profiles created in this way were used in the experiment.

At the start of the experiment, participants reported their demographic information and sexual preferences (“To what extent you’re sexually attracted to men”; “To what extent you’re sexually attracted to women”). Participants were then shown the profiles described above and asked to indicate how likely they were to choose each of the shown psychotherapists.

The psychotherapist profiles were divided based on competence (low-high number of stars) and attractiveness (attractive, unattractive, or without a profile picture). After rating all the profiles, participants completed an assessment of their attitude towards mental health treatment (the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Short Form Scale).

Results showed that psychotherapist profiles with attractive facial pictures were more likely to be chosen, even when their perceived competence (number of stars) was controlled for. There were no differences in the likelihood of being chosen between profiles with unattractive pictures and profiles with no profile pictures, indicating that the effect observed is a preference for attractive faces, not avoidance of unattractive ones. Neither the therapists’ nor the patients’ gender and sexual preferences moderated the observed effect.

“The findings suggest that the preference for attractiveness in therapist selection is not driven by mating intentions nor by a “halo effect” related to trustworthiness or competence,” study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the factors affecting clients’ choice of psychotherapists. However, it should be noted that the study relied on a hypothetical decision-making design rather than observing actual therapist selection. Furthermore, the sample primarily consisted of university students from Colombia and Peru, which may limit the generalizability of the findings.

Additionally, the participants were not actively seeking help for a mental health problem. Under these conditions, therapist competence or perceived ability to address a specific problem may have played a smaller role in participants’ choices. Results for individuals in real-life settings actively making final selections for a specific mental health or life problem might differ.

The paper, “Facial attractiveness increases the likelihood of choosing a psychotherapist, irrespective of sexual preferences and perceived trustworthiness,” was authored by Antonio Olivera-La Rosa, Alessandro Ansani, Marco Viola, and Marco Marini.