Beauty Stereotypes Based On Stereotype Content Model And Its Influence On Spontaneous Trait Inferences

Facial attractiveness refers to the positive and pleasant emotional experience induced by the face of the target person and the degree to which others are motivated to approach their will(Rhodes,2006;Kou Hui,etc.,2013).Researchers have found that there is a stereotype of "beauty is good",that is,people usually think that individuals with high face attraction have more positive personality traits and ability traits,such as honesty and intelligence.At the same time,the Stereotype Content Model holds that the content of stereotype can be divided into competence and warmth.Some stereotypes are mixed,that is,high-competence,low-warmth or low-competence,high-warmth.Some stereotypes are positive,that is,high-competence,high-warmth and low-competence,low-warmth.Stereotyping research based on content model involves gender,power and other fields,which has been widely recognized by researchers.Facial attractiveness stereotype,as an important stereotype,is rarely studied from the perspective of content model.In addition,according to the different ways of information processing,stereotypes can also be divided into implicit stereotypes and explicit stereotypes,and correspond to different measurement methods.Fiske et al.(2002)argued that explicit stereotypes may not reflect people's real stereotypes,so it is necessary to explore them from both explicit and implicit perspectives.Spontaneous trait reasoning refers to an automated process in which an individual infers other people's traits based on their behavioral information without a specific purpose or even complete awareness,and then forms an impression of others.Previous studies have shown that stereotypes have a certain impact on the individual's spontaneous trait reasoning,and information inconsistent with stereotypes can hinder the individual's spontaneous trait reasoning.In addition,the study of stereotype on spontaneous trait reasoning also finds the negative effects of enthusiastic preference effect and content valence.The gradual development of the study of facial stereotypes from the perspective of psychology provides a basis for people to better understand the relevant phenomena and guide life practice.But the research of facial stereotype based on content model is still relatively scarce,and the research of facial attractiveness stereotype on spontaneous trait reasoning is also very few.This study explores these two issues.Study one and two explore facial stereotype based on content model from two different processing methods,explicit and implicit,respectively.Study three examined the effect of facial attractiveness stereotypes on spontaneous trait reasoning using the paradigm of probe recognition.The conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Individuals have a high-competence and high-warmth explicitly stereotype for high facial attractors,and a low-competence and low-warmth explicitly stereotype for low facial attractors,which shows that the subjects scored higher on the competence and warmth of low-facial attractors.(2)Individuals have high-competence and high-warmth implicitly stereotypes for high facial attractors,and implicit stereotypes of low-competence and low-warmth implicitly stereotypes for low facial attractors.In implicit association tests,the D values of competence and warmth are significantly greater than 0.(3)In the case of high/low attractive face priming,the subjects had both the content effect of warmth priority and the negative effect of content valence.No effect of facial stereotype on spontaneous trait reasoning was found.