Of the Bold and the Beautiful: How Feeling Beautiful Leads to More Extreme Choices
Although beauty is a concept that has been widely discussed in philosophy, psychology, and economics, choice researchers have not examined how people's perceptions of their own physical attractiveness might impact their preferences. The authors posit that enhancing people's perceptions of their attractiveness increases their general self-confidence, resulting in a shift in their relative preference among options in subsequent unrelated choice tasks. Six studies demonstrate that people who feel more beautiful are more likely to choose options that are associated with greater confidence: extreme over compromise options, enriched over all-average options, and non-default over status quo options. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical implications and managerial consequences of our findings.
Dr. Dhar is the George Rogers Clark Professor of Management and Marketing and Director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management. You can read more about his research at http://faculty.som.yale.edu/ravidhar/
