Pretty Privilege And The Psychology Behind It

Beauty is subjective, no matter how it manifests itself in various ways through societal beauty standards, which themselves are fluctuating ideals with a narrow criterion. However, there are those who meet the societal standards and often end up experiencing social advantages, better treatment, and other benefits – this is commonly referred to as “pretty privilege” – and there are others who do not fit into the ‘attractive people’ category, therefore not receiving similar or a nicer treatment. Taking this onboard, we will look at how it affects everyone and what the psychology behind having pretty privilege is.

According to Ethan Milne, who wrote an article about ‘The Problem of Pretty Privilege’ on Medium, “privilege denotes some sort of advantage offered to a particular person. Our society… keep the concept of advantage, and add to it that this advantage must be conferred upon someone by an accident of birth to ‘count’ as privilege. In other words, privilege means an advantage that is unearned.”

The writer then goes on to discuss the type of privilege you can gain from attractiveness, so if you are interested in reading the article, then click HERE.

Here is how pretty privilege can affect someone’s life:

Seen as a better employee

Simply put, the “Halo Effect” is implied subconsciously; assuming people’s appearances are a reflection of their overall character. This leads to employers being biased towards people who look the part when looking for certain roles to be filled, such as clever people looking like they are clever. However, if someone who looked more like a fashion and beauty person came in, the employer may be less inclined to hire them as an IT person, compared to someone who does look like they work with computers.

Romantic success

Most of the time, the good-looking quality is looked for in a partner, so this brings many benefits to those considered to have pretty privilege. While other factors such as personality are bound to play a role in who we find attractive, it is impossible to ignore the influence of physical attractiveness within the realm of dating and romance.

More likely to make friends

Pretty privilege also translates to having more confidence; therefore, people are more likely to start conversation with those who fit the standard. However, as said before, beauty is subjective, which is why each friendship group may look for their own kind of beauty to join them. An example is, typically ‘popular’ girls looking for others like them, and those who love to read and are always found doing something ‘clever’ or ‘nerdy’ can be attractive to others like them.

Pretty privilege is carved into our society. Researchers have suggested that the main way to battle these privileges is to untrain the favouritism we have towards physically attractive people. Feeling comfortable in your own skin is also a huge step in combatting the effects of pretty privilege and upward comparisons. The recent rise of the body positivity movement has been proven by researchers to increase female confidence and enhance their mental well-being. Researchers have said, “Referring to social media content that challenges status-quo beauty ideals by portraying and promoting diverse physical appearances, are suggestive of mental health benefits.”

Being aware of one’s privilege leads to more self-awareness and better likelihood of others being treated more fairly, so it is important to recognise a pattern and address. Overall, many find the entire idea of having pretty privilege ridiculous, which is why I decided to discuss it to some extent, so with this information, it can be seen that although it can be unfair, there are way to combat this prejudice, and we should recognise it.