Course research presentation for PSYC 270: Laboratory Research in Psychology (Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience Class) @ UNC; presented by Parker Jenkins & Group 612 Recitation

Research thesis: Contradicting preconceived stereotypes of social attractiveness and inducing participant empathy using a hiring-manager scenario and questionnaire before participants take a sample Implicit Association Test will reduce overall quantitative implicit bias based on physical attractiveness.

Implicit bias is an automatic reaction we have towards other people. These attitudes and stereotypes can negatively impact our understanding, actions, and decision-making. The idea that we can hold prejudices we don’t want or believe was quite radical when it was first introduced, and the fact that people may discriminate unintentionally continues to have implications for understanding disparities in so many aspects of society, including but not limited to health care, policing, and education, as well as organizational practices like hiring and promotion.

For this experimentation project, we were tasked with creating a scenario that reduces overall implicit bias when participants took the Implicit Association Test (IAT) specifically looking at attractiveness bias in the workforce. To do this, we crafted a scenario in which the participant is a hiring manager, looking at two different candidates—one “conventionally attractive” and the other “conventionally unattractive”—with clear differences in ability and resume highlights. Through this introductory scenario before the beginning of the IAT, we hoped to both humanize the “conventionally unattractive” to be seen for their skills in the workplace instead of being taken at face-value, and to evoke empathy in the participant group that would reflect in a quantitatively lower implicit association between “conventionally attractive” and “conventionally unattractive” peoples.