Beauty is only skin deep: An examination of physical attractiveness, attractive personality, and personal grooming on criminal justice outcomes

Research has found that physical attractiveness is related to a host of benefits across life outcomes. Within the field of criminal justice, physical attractiveness appears to afford individuals leniency at various decision points. This research, however, often fails to include measures of personal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one Vol. 18; no. 10; p. e0291922
Main Authors: Knox, Krysta N., TenEyck, Michael F.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: San Francisco Public Library of Science 11.10.2023
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
Animal reproduction
Attraction
Beauty
Biology and Life Sciences
Crime
Criminal justice, Administration of
Criminology
Decision analysis
Decision making
Gender
Grooming
Halo effect
Health aspects
Imprisonment
Judicial system
Management
Medicine and Health Sciences
People and Places
Perceptions
Personal appearance
Personality
Psychological aspects
Regression analysis
Research and Analysis Methods
Skin
Social aspects
Social Sciences
Tattoos
United States
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Research has found that physical attractiveness is related to a host of benefits across life outcomes. Within the field of criminal justice, physical attractiveness appears to afford individuals leniency at various decision points. This research, however, often fails to include measures of personal presentation beyond simply measuring physical attractiveness. The current study extends this line of research by investigating how physical attractiveness, personality attractiveness, and grooming are related to criminal justice processing decisions. Results from negative binomial and logistic regression analyses indicate that when assessed alone, physical attractiveness significantly decreased the odds of criminal behavior by 18 percent, arrest by 11 percent, conviction by 14 percent, and incarceration by 28 percent—controlling for race, age, and gender. When controlling for personality and grooming, however, physical attractiveness results in a 47 to 53 percent increase in the risk of experiencing these outcomes while having an attractive personality and being well-groomed significantly reduced such risk. These results highlight the importance of considering other factors of appearance and personal presentation when considering how attractiveness influences criminal justice outcomes.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0291922