The ‘beauty bias’ in the service industry is inconsistent and sometimes backfires, major new study finds

A new comprehensive analysis of over 50 years of research finds that while a service provider’s physical attractiveness does have a moderately positive effect on customer evaluations, this “beauty premium” is highly inconsistent and can sometimes even lead to negative outcomes. The research, which synthesized data from dozens of previous studies, suggests that the widely held belief in a universal benefit for attractive employees is an oversimplification. This work was published in the Journal of Service Theory and Practice.

The study was conducted by researchers Goldar Lenjeu Chefor of the University of Mississippi and Ellis Chefor of Kennesaw State University. They initiated the project to resolve long-standing contradictions in research on how a service employee’s appearance affects customer perceptions and behaviors. While some studies have shown that attractive employees lead to higher sales and better reviews, others have found no effect or even a negative effect, particularly when a service interaction goes wrong. This inconsistency creates confusion for businesses and highlights the need for a clearer understanding of the bias, especially as companies increasingly turn to artificial intelligence to make hiring and promotion decisions fairer.

“We were trying to find out how general the effect of physical attractiveness is on, not necessarily a service provider’s performance, but how the service provider is evaluated,” Goldar Chefor said. The researchers sought to quantify the real-world impact of this bias to help businesses make better decisions.

“Our approach was to identify the impact of attractiveness bias to help managers make more informed decisions and to highlight the often-overlooked negative consequences that can result,” Ellis Chefor added.

To achieve a broad and reliable overview, the researchers employed a method known as meta-analysis, which statistically combines the results of many independent studies. They gathered 54 articles published between 1971 and 2023, which included 65 independent samples and a total of more than 41,000 participants. This large dataset allowed them to calculate an overall average effect of physical attractiveness and examine the factors that might change its impact. The analysis explored what specific features contribute to perceptions of attractiveness, what service outcomes are most affected, and how the effect changes in different situations, such as online versus in-person interactions.

The analysis first confirmed that, on average, there is a positive relationship between a service provider’s physical attractiveness and positive service outcomes. However, the variability in this effect was substantial. The results indicated that in future studies, the effect could range from slightly negative to moderately positive, showing that the beauty premium is not a universal rule. The findings suggest that context plays a significant role in whether an employee’s appearance helps or hurts a customer’s experience.

The investigation also looked at what physical attributes most strongly influence a customer’s perception of attractiveness. Previous research often focused on facial features. This analysis found that while facial appeal was a strong indicator, an employee’s body shape and appearance had an even stronger association with being perceived as attractive. This suggests that customers’ judgments are based on a broader set of visual cues than just the face.

A key part of the study examined the mechanisms behind the beauty premium. The results showed that physical attractiveness does not directly translate into better outcomes. Instead, it operates through the customer’s social perceptions. “The mechanism through which physical attractiveness influences service outcomes is an implicit social judgment of the employee,” Goldar Chefor explained. Customers tend to automatically judge attractive individuals as being more competent, trustworthy, and likeable. These positive judgments then lead to higher ratings for service quality and satisfaction.

The analysis showed that physical attractiveness had its strongest influence on customers’ cognitive and emotional responses. Attractive employees were more likely to be seen in a positive light, receive higher satisfaction ratings, and generate positive feelings. The link to actual customer behavior was weaker. While attractiveness was associated with increased customer loyalty and engagement, it had no significant effect on sales performance or a customer’s willingness to recommend the service to others through word-of-mouth. This finding suggests that while customers may enjoy interacting with an attractive employee, it does not necessarily translate into actions that directly boost a company’s revenue.

The researchers also identified several factors that altered the strength of the attractiveness effect. One of the most surprising findings concerned gender. The common assumption is that women are judged more on their appearance than men. “We expected that the beauty bias will be greater for women than men, primarily because prior research shows that consumers expect women, much more than men, to show more of those traits like likeability and warmth that are easily implicitly inferred from attractiveness,” Goldar Chefor noted. “But our results showed the opposite.”

The analysis found that the effect of physical attractiveness was actually weaker for female service providers. “It appeared that men’s evaluations are driven more by their physical attractiveness, and the effect that attractiveness has is not on their actual performance, but on their perceived performance,” she continued. “So how people evaluate men relies more on attractiveness than it does for women. That was a little bit surprising.”

Other contextual factors also made a difference. The beauty premium was stronger in in-person interactions compared to virtual ones, likely because more sensory cues are available face-to-face. The effect was also more pronounced in Eastern cultures compared to Western cultures and for human employees compared to non-human agents like robots. This suggests that the rise of virtual services and automated agents could naturally reduce the impact of appearance-based bias.

The study also confirmed that physical attractiveness can become a liability during service failures. “For example, if I had a bad experience at a restaurant and the waiter was attractive, I’m going to have a worse evaluation of the organization than if they were not attractive,” Ellis Chefor said. “There are negative consequences of having attractive people, especially when there’s some kind of service failure.” This happens because customers may have higher expectations for attractive employees, leading to greater disappointment when things go wrong.

The findings have practical implications for how companies approach hiring, training, and performance evaluations. As businesses adopt artificial intelligence, there is an opportunity to mitigate these biases. “There’s a growing trend in the industry of organizations using artificial intelligence service agents as sales managers to evaluate, to rate and to promote salespeople,” Ellis Chefor said. “We need to figure out whether artificial intelligence helps control the kind of discrimination we suspect exists, particularly around how people are evaluated based on attractiveness.”

He also noted the difficulty of addressing this bias through legal channels. “People often try to sue organizations for discriminatory hiring and promotion practices based on appearance, but these cases rarely succeed,” Ellis Chefor stated. “That’s because proving someone is more attractive than another is subjective and difficult to quantify. You can see the bias happening, but without a clear way to measure it, it’s nearly impossible to prove in court.”

The study does have some limitations. Its conclusions are based only on existing quantitative research, meaning some aspects of attractiveness, like personal style or grooming, could not be fully analyzed due to a lack of available data. The researchers point out that style is an area companies can influence through dress codes without engaging in discriminatory practices.

Future research could explore the dark side of physical attractiveness in more detail and examine its effects over the long term to see if the initial positive impression fades over time. More investigation is also needed on the impact of appearance in virtual settings and with non-human service agents, as these interactions become more common.

The study, “What is beautiful is not all good: a meta-analysis on the effects of physical attractiveness on service outcomes,” was authored by Goldar Lenjeu Chefor and Ellis Chefor.