Judging a Book by Its Cover: The Differential Impact of Attractiveness on Predicting One's Acceptance to High‐ or Low‐Status Social Groups

Emerging research suggests that the cues we glean from first impressions depend on our goals. This research uses sorority recruitment to examine whether groups that vary in social status rely on disparate cues to form first impressions of potential new group members. Current sorority members were given 500 ms to view pictures of women who wanted to join their sororities, and were then asked how likely it was that each prospective member would receive a bid from their sorority (bid expectancy). Prospective members were also rated on their attractiveness. Data were analyzed separately for high‐ vs. low‐status houses. Results revealed that attractiveness was more predictive of liking and bid expectancy for the high‐status houses, as compared to the low‐status houses.