In a paper published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Sun Young Lee and her co-authors examined the impact of job candidates’ physical attractiveness and decision-makers’ self-interested motives in selection. Supporting the authors’ predictions, across all studies, good-looking male candidates were preferred when cooperation was expected, but the pattern reversed when competition was expected.
In an article featured in the Times Higher Education, Lee explores what these findings might tell us about recruitment practices in the higher education sector.