Fundamental social goals and the attractiveness bias in personnel decision making

It has been assumed that physically attractive others are inevitably and universally preferred in interpersonal decision making, but empirical results have been mixed. The present research, drawing upon the fundamental motives framework, looks at the various social goals (mating-, competition-, and coalition-goals) embedded in the context of decision making as a key boundary condition that differently predicts the relationship between attractiveness and interpersonal preference. Results of two studies supported our overarching hypothesis on the different effects of discrete social goals on the attractiveness bias in hiring decisions. Moreover, Study 2 showed that the effects of participant social goal, target sex-type, and target attractiveness on hiring intention were mediated by perceiver’s threat/instrumantality perception of targets. Theoretical and organizational implications are discussed.