To conduct an experiment, 20/20 hired actors——some great looking, some not——and put them in situations to gauge how often the “lookers” would get preferential treatment.
In the first test, we put two women next to cars without gas in Atlanta. The women wore the same outfit.
Both Michelle and Tracey stood helplessly by cars with their hoods up. For the average-looking Michelle, a few pedestrians stopped but only made suggestions as where she could walk to get gasoline. But for the beautiful Tracey, cars came screeching to a halt. More than a dozen cars stopped and six people went to get Tracey gas.
The two actresses helped with our second test, at an Atlanta shopping mall where both women set up a table and sold calendars and teddy bears to raise money for charity. Overall, it looked as if both women were doing well with their sales. Then we counted the money and found Tracey collected 50 percent more.
What if we tested something requiring qualifications, like getting a job? Looks shouldn't matter then but would they?
20/20 hired two women to apply for jobs. The clearest difference between them was looks while they shared similar education and work experience backgrounds. To match them up more closely, we rewrote their résumés to match.
Donia, our more attractive female applicant, and her counterpart, Amy, both had been secretaries and saleswomen. A consultant trained them so their behavior matched.
Hidden cameras captured interviewers being warmer and friendlier to the better looking applicants and being less friendly to the other applicants. With Amy and Donia, for example, one job interviewer told Amy employees got a 45-minute lunch break but with Donia the interviewer said there was a flexible policy about lunch. Who got the job offer? Donia. Amy never even got a call back.
“It's a non-conscious process,” said Tom Cash, a psychologist at Old Dominion University. “They assume that more attractive people have an array of valued characteristics.”
We should add the bias of “lookism” to sexism and racism. It's just as bad but we don't need a federal program.
为了做一个试验，“20/20”节目雇用了演员。有些人容貌出众，有些人却不是。但把演员们放在特定环境下，看看“漂亮人”是如何常常得到优待的。
在第一次试验中，在亚特兰大，我们让两位女演员穿戴一样，分别站在没有汽油的车旁。
Michelle和Tracey引擎罩打开着，绝望无助地站在车旁。相貌平平的Michelle只能让几位行人驻足，但他们也只是为她指出如何加油的路，而美貌Tracey的待遇却大不相同。许多车子为她猛然刹车，一打以上的车主停车，6个人要为Tracey加油。
两位女演员又帮助我们做了第二个试验。在一家亚特兰大购物中心，两人都设摊慈善义卖日历和玩具熊。从表面上看，她们卖得一样好，可是数钱时却发现，Tracey的收入要高出50%.
如果我们实验某些需要资格的事情，比如应聘，结果会如何呢？容貌会起到什么作用呢？
“20/20”节目组雇用了两位女人参加应聘，她们有相似的教育和工作经验背景，但容貌却大不相同。为了使她们更接近，我们改写了她们的履历。
Donia是我们非常迷人的女求职者，与她搭档的Amy，两人都曾当过秘书和销售人员。一位顾问专门对她们进行了训练，使她们的举止相同。
暗藏的摄像机捕获了主聘人员对相貌好看的应聘者十分热情和友好，而对其它应征者则不友好。例如，招聘人员对Amy说，雇员只有45分钟午饭休息时间，而却对Donia说，午饭时间是有弹性的。谁得到工作了？当然是Donia.Amy则再也没有接到回复电话。
Old Dominion大学的心理学家Tom Cash说：“这是一个无意识的过程，他们推测漂亮的人有更多富有价值的品质。”
我们应该在性别歧视和种族歧视之后再添一个“容貌歧视”，尽管它与前两者一样可恶，但对此并不需要联邦立法。