The “beautiful is moral” stereotype may be an illusion shaped by how much we like someone

A new series of studies challenges a long-standing belief in social psychology known as the “beautiful is moral” stereotype—the idea that people who are physically attractive are also seen as having better moral character. Across three studies, researchers found that while attractiveness can influence how moral someone appears, this effect is mostly driven by how much people like the person. The findings, published in Scientific Reports, suggest that emotional responses may matter more than appearance alone when forming moral impressions.

The research was motivated by the need to clarify mixed findings in previous studies on the relationship between physical attractiveness and moral character judgments. While many people intuitively believe that attractive individuals are “good,” research has shown this assumption doesn’t always hold. Some studies have found no effect of attractiveness on morality, or even negative associations when attractive people are viewed as vain or manipulative.

The researchers behind this new work wanted to explore a possible explanation for these inconsistencies: that feelings of liking mediate the effect of attractiveness on morality, and that people’s belief in a just world—a worldview that people get what they deserve—might shape this effect.

“Two key sources inspired me. Classic work by Dion and Dion (1987) suggested that the ‘beautiful is good’ stereotype depends on belief in a just world—an idea we found questionable, especially in the Polish context, where such beliefs are typically low,” explained study author Konrad Bocian, an associate professor at SWPS University.

“More recent research by Han and Laurent (2023) has shown that extreme attractiveness can trigger negative judgments, mediated by traits such as vanity or sociability. These findings led us to explore whether personal liking might be a deeper, underexamined factor driving the link between attractiveness and moral perception.”

To explore these ideas, the researchers conducted three experiments in different cultural contexts using samples from the United States (788 participants), Poland (1,913 participants), and the United Kingdom (1,024 participants). In each study, participants were shown photos of unfamiliar individuals varying in physical attractiveness, and were asked to rate them on a number of traits, including sociability, vanity, and moral character. Participants also reported how much they liked each person and completed a standardized measure of their belief in a just world.

In the first study, conducted with U.S. participants, the researchers randomly assigned participants to see either highly attractive or moderately attractive faces of both men and women. After viewing each face, participants rated the person’s sociability (e.g., happy, agreeable), vanity (e.g., egotistical, self-centered), and moral character (e.g., honest, trustworthy). They also indicated how much they liked each person and completed a measure of personal and general belief in a just world.

The results showed that participants judged highly attractive individuals, especially women, as having greater moral character than moderately attractive ones. However, when the researchers added “liking” into their statistical model, the influence of attractiveness on moral character disappeared. In other words, the more participants liked the target, the more moral they perceived them to be—regardless of how attractive the person was. Importantly, neither general nor personal belief in a just world moderated these effects. That is, people who believed the world is fair were no more likely to associate beauty with morality than those who didn’t.

To see whether these findings would replicate in a different cultural setting, the researchers repeated the experiment with a much larger sample of Polish participants. The procedures were the same, but the survey was translated into Polish and the stimuli were culturally neutral photographs of white faces drawn from a widely used face database.

The results in Study 2 closely mirrored those from Study 1. Again, highly attractive women were judged as more moral than their moderately attractive counterparts, but this association was explained by how much participants liked the person. Once again, the stereotype did not apply to male targets. Ratings of vanity did not differ significantly based on attractiveness, and belief in a just world failed to influence any of the moral character judgments.

To move beyond correlational evidence, Bocian and his colleagues tested the causal role of liking by manipulating not only the attractiveness of the target but also how much participants would like them. This time, a British sample of over 1,000 people participated. Instead of only showing faces, the researchers presented participants with a photo and a personality profile that was either similar or dissimilar to the participant’s own preferences—an established method for inducing liking or disliking. For example, participants saw a target person who shared many of their media and lifestyle preferences (similar condition) or who held opposing preferences (dissimilar condition).

This time, the results did not support the “beautiful is moral” stereotype. In fact, moderately attractive individuals were judged as having higher moral character than highly attractive individuals. However, people who were perceived as similar—and therefore more likable—were consistently rated as more moral, regardless of their attractiveness. Vanity ratings were higher for highly attractive targets and for those who were dissimilar in preferences, supporting the idea that certain negative traits may cancel out the presumed moral advantage of physical attractiveness. Once again, belief in a just world had no effect on participants’ moral character ratings.

“A surprising finding was that belief in a just world did not influence the link between attractiveness and perceived morality,” Bocian told PsyPost. “This challenges earlier assumptions that people see attractive individuals as more moral because they believe the world is fair. Instead, our results suggest that attractiveness shapes moral judgments independently of such beliefs. This suggests that emotional factors, such as personal liking, outweigh rational justifications in stereotype-based evaluations.”

Taken together, these three studies provide strong support for the idea that liking—more than attractiveness—drives moral character judgments. While attractive women may often be seen as more moral, this appears to be less about their looks and more about how much they are liked. This insight revises the classic halo effect theory, which posits that people’s overall impressions of someone—often based on physical traits—color their judgments about unrelated qualities. In this case, liking may be the emotional filter through which attractiveness exerts its influence.

“The key takeaway is that our moral judgments are shaped not just by someone’s appearance, but also by how much we personally like them,” Bocian explained. “While the ‘beautiful is moral’ stereotype exists, especially for women, liking plays a central role in how we evaluate others’ character. This means our impressions can be biased in subtle ways we’re not always aware of. Being mindful of these biases can help us make fair and accurate assessments of others.”

But the study, like all research, has limitations. For one, the researchers used only white faces, which means the findings may not extend to targets of other racial or ethnic backgrounds. Since prior research shows that racial cues can interact with perceptions of attractiveness and morality, future studies should examine whether the same mediating role of liking applies across more diverse samples. Another limitation is the gender specificity of the stereotype. Across all three studies, attractiveness only influenced moral judgments for women. This aligns with cultural norms that emphasize appearance more for women than men, but it also points to the need for more research on gender differences in moral perception.

“Our next steps focus on understanding why the ‘beautiful is moral’ stereotype reversed when participants perceived the target as similar to themselves,” Bocian said. “We plan to investigate how self-rated attractiveness, similarity, and cultural values, such as humility, influence moral judgments. Future studies will also examine the role of race and more diverse facial features, given our current focus on white faces. Ultimately, we aim to uncover the psychological and cultural mechanisms underlying appearance-based moral evaluations, thereby better understanding and reducing social bias.”

The study, “Reevaluating the beautiful is moral stereotype by examining the impact of personal liking and belief in a just world,” was authored by Konrad Bocian, Raluca Diana Szekely-Copîndean, Katarzyna Myslinska-Szarek, and Bogdan Wojciszke.