How a good hair day gives you big head

Scientists believe that a blow dry may affect your mindset far more than previously thought.In fact, seeing yourself as physically attractive can make you to believe you belong in a higher social class.As a result you are also more likely to believe people lower down in a hierarchy are there because they deserve to be, according to researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Business in California.Their study also showed that self-perceived physical beauty mattered more to people's perception of their social status than qualities such as integrity and empathy.Many people ‘see the social world as fundamentally stratified not only on the basis of who has wealth, education, and occupational prestige, but also on the basis of who is beautiful and attractive,’ researchers Professor Margaret Neale and doctoral student Peter Belmi wrote.The research is the first to draw an clear connection between people's perceptions of their own attractiveness and their attitudes toward inequality and hierarchies. To test the connection, researchers asked participants to write about a time when they felt more or less attractive.They then questioned whether the participants agreed with statements such as, ‘some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups,’ and ‘lower wages for women and ethnic minorities simply reflect lower skill and education level.’They found that even memories of bad hair days or the times a good-looking date smiled in their direction affected the way the participants viewed inequality.‘What's surprising is that we find that most people seem to endorse hierarchy when they think they're attractive and oppose it when they think they're not,’ Professor Belmi said.‘Why would people's stance on inequality shift so quickly depending on whether they think they are attractive?’Among other things, the study helped establish how malleable people's views of inequality can be.Professor Belmi began the research after he noticed that Americans' colossal spending on personal grooming kept up despite the recession.Americans spent at least $200 billion (£119 billion)on their physical appearance in 2008 — and cosmetic surgery is now the fastest-growing medical expenditure.If people were willing to keep spending on beauty products in the face of economic hardship, Professor Belmi reasoned, there might be a reason why.The research found that the mirror effect held true for study participants regardless of gender or ethnicity. Feeling attractive changed their own views of where they fell in the hierarchy, and where others should fall.The research doesn't address how cultural stereotypes of beauty might be internalised and lead to self-stereotyping.The researchers also found that self-perceptions of attractiveness even affected how likely you are to give money to a social inequality cause, in this case.Those who were led to believe that they were attractive were less likely to donate.The finding that your assessment of yourself shapes your view of yourself and others puts power into your hands.Next time you're facing a situation that calls for you to present yourself in the best light — and perhaps a few notches up on the organisational ladder from where you normally perceive yourself to be — you might try a new strategy, Professor Neale suggests.(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az