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Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

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Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#101

Post by inetknght »

dragonwriter wrote: post #95
leereeves wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I dislike the idea of protected groups. Some people do seem to think that the existence of protected groups means it's ok to discriminate against anyone who isn't protected. But law is only about power. It has little relation to morality.

> This is why I dislike the idea of protected groups. Some people do seem to think that the existence of protected groups means it's ok to discriminate against anyone who isn't protected. In law, for private parties, that is expressly the case. Absent protected classes people could, and with them they still can outside of them, differentiate treatment on any basis they choose. For government action under US Constitut…

> In law, for private parties, that is expressly the case. Absent protected classes people could, and with them they still can outside of them, differentiate treatment on any basis they choose.

Good luck suing a potential employer because you were discriminated against outside of some protected class.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#102

Post by jackblemming »

WalterBright wrote: post #80
RachelF wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Height as well. We instinctively think tall people make better leaders.

Tall people tend to be more relaxed in leadership roles, because they feel less of a need to prove themselves.

White people tend to be more relaxed in leadership roles, because they feel less of a need to prove themselves.

Do you see how insane this sounds?

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#103

Post by hoosieree »

RachelF wrote: post #66
daenz wrote: post #13

>Both male and female applicants whose photos were filtered were perceived as more competent A tale as old as time. Politicians who are attractive have a huge perception advantage. And political campaigns that use actors (who are almost by definition attractive) appeal to these same competence biases.

Height as well. We instinctively think tall people make better leaders.

In the cartoon show Invader Zim, the alien civilization uses height (and only height) to select its leaders. The older I get, the more I wonder if this was satirical.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#104

Post by MiddleEndian »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #61
mdoms wrote: post #12

> In study 2, beautifying filters increased the hireability only slightly for White female applicants, followed by White and Black male applicants but substantially for Black female applicants It's a gross thing to consider but I wonder if the filter lightened the skin of black female applicants. These results are disappointing but unfortunately not surprising.

Cameras used to be notoriously bad at picking up dark skin colours correctly. Apps might fix it.

>used to be

Apparently still an issue. When two friends of mine, a black woman and a white man, got married, they had to find a specific photographer who specialized in simultaneously photographing black and white people.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#105

Post by AlwaysRock »

daenz wrote: post #13

>Both male and female applicants whose photos were filtered were perceived as more competent A tale as old as time. Politicians who are attractive have a huge perception advantage. And political campaigns that use actors (who are almost by definition attractive) appeal to these same competence biases.

Haha. Yet somehow we get old wrinkly people running the country.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#106

Post by aardvark92 »

rybosome wrote: post #54
altdataseller wrote: post #4

Does being attractive really help you in getting hired in engineering positions? I would understand client-facing/sales jobs, but unsure it would help in engineering roles

Being attractive helps you in everything. Humans have a fundamental positive bias towards those they perceive as attractive. At the risk of sounding arrogant, let me share my personal experience. Over a period of a year in my early thirties, I became more conventionally attractive by: purchasing clothes from StitchFix (a styling service), getting my hair cut regularly by a stylist, adopting a regular grooming routine…

also am curious as to the dark side!

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#107

Post by xiphias2 »

elptacek wrote: post #52

And there it is, the one thing I can never have an honest conversation about. The rules are different for ugly people, based on my personal experience as one data point. We're the last lot that everyone can discriminate against, or abuse, and get away with it.

Old people are in the same group, though age is definitely related to unattractiveness.

With many sick people, it's also impossible not to discriminate (although that also correlates heavily to getting old).

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#108

Post by dragonwriter »

leereeves wrote: post #98
dragonwriter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why I dislike the idea of protected groups. Some people do seem to think that the existence of protected groups means it's ok to discriminate against anyone who isn't protected. In law, for private parties, that is expressly the case. Absent protected classes people could, and with them they still can outside of them, differentiate treatment on any basis they choose. For government action under US Constitut…

And every group that is now protected was once not protected. Were, say, the actions taken against Alan Turing acceptable simply because they were legal at the time? I must say, I'm surprised to see you defending prejudice. From what I've read of your posts here over the years, I thought you were against such things.

> Were, say, the actions taken against Alan Turing acceptable simply because they were legal at the time

Kind of an odd example to use to defend that “protected classes make people think other discrimination is acceptable” argument, since protected classes didn't exist then and people thought that discrimination was perfectly acceptable.

> I must say, I'm surprised to see you defending prejudice.

I must say, I’m surprised you think I am defending prejudice.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#109

Post by viceroyalbean »

filoleg wrote: post #31
projektfu wrote: post #16

When I was in England for a short time I was tasked with screening candidates for employment (software engineers). As an American, I was taken aback by most of the resumes including photos. That's just not done here in the US. Some American HR departments might even send back your resume and ask you to resubmit it without a photo. It seems to be standard practice in Europe, perhaps to convince you that the person int…

Heard from friends who lived and worked in South Korea that it was pretty much mandatory for any resume application there. The specific one that comes to mind is nursing. Definitely left me baffled the first time I heard it.

Yep, pretty much mandatory in Korea. Everyone goes to professional photographers who apply copious amounts of photoshop, of course.

You even get to pick your own image for your driver's license, again with a healthy serving of digital retouching.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#110

Post by drekk »

leereeves wrote: post #98
dragonwriter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why I dislike the idea of protected groups. Some people do seem to think that the existence of protected groups means it's ok to discriminate against anyone who isn't protected. In law, for private parties, that is expressly the case. Absent protected classes people could, and with them they still can outside of them, differentiate treatment on any basis they choose. For government action under US Constitut…

And every group that is now protected was once not protected. Were, say, the actions taken against Alan Turing acceptable simply because they were legal at the time? I must say, I'm surprised to see you defending prejudice. From what I've read of your posts here over the years, I thought you were against such things.

Kind of a reach to claim the poster is defending prejudice.

Alan Turing was chemically castrated for being gay. Society finding you conventionally unattractive and thus passing you over for a promotion at work isn't exactly the same thing. People are discriminated against for lots of reasons, many subconscious, but protected categories didn't emerge from a vacuum. The reason being queer is protected whereas being short or ugly isn't has nothing to do with queer people having more power in government (lol) but because there was a history of actual violence, much of which was state-sanctioned, against queer people.

Then again being in a protected category has never really helped me avoid discrimination; having enough money to afford competent legal representation did. I wonder how many Americans can afford that when the majority can't make a $500 emergency expense. I'd argue the poor are the most clearly discriminated against group in our society and clearly there's a history of direct and indirect violence against them on that basis alone, but capitalism requires their existence and so they're invisible to our judicial system.

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