ABSTRACT

Discrimination based on beauty'a beauty premium or a beauty penalty'can  occur because people hold incorrect beliefs about the relationship between beauty and productivity. We demonstrate a beauty premium when social skills are deemed important, and a beauty penalty when analytical skills are deemed important. Even within analytical skills, we find evidence for both a beauty penalty and beauty premium. Among new programmers (with low reputation scores), unattractive programmers are treated more favorably than attractive ones, but among experienced programmers (with high reputation scores), attractive programmers are treated more favorably than unattractive ones.