Citation

Holahan CK, Stephan CW. Sex Roles 1981; 7(8): 867-876.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1981, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF00287771

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The present study investigated the effect of attitudes toward women, physical attractiveness, and competence on impression formation of women. Male and female undergraduates read a competent or incompetent essay allegedly written by a physically attractive or unattractive female and responded to questions about the essay and its writer. Subjects were classified as traditionals, moderates, or liberals on the basis of their scores on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale. Female subjects' impressions were affected by the competence of the stimulus person and by their sex-role attitudes, but were not influenced by the physical attractiveness of the writer. Males, however, were influenced by all three variables. Evidence was found for a reversal of the physical attractiveness stereotype for liberal males with reference to incompetent women. The implications of these findings for physical attractiveness research are discussed.