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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

#161

Post by ramblerman »

burnished wrote: post #149
mrshadowgoose wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've mistakenly scoped my point to solely "the dating game". Physical discrimination in that scope if of course, completely understandable, and IMO completely okay. However, it's been shown repeatedly that "fuckability" results in better treatment in most other aspects of one's life, including things like job opportunities, career progression, and general treatment in non-romantic social interactions. All o…

Whats hypocritical about it? What are you possibly going to do about it that isn't already covered under a more general and better fitting "lets find ways to treat each other fairly that minimizes the opportunity for our monkey brains to fuck up and associate traits and characteristics with superficial features. there has got to be a way to do this, jesus christ"? By focusing on just that aspect, fuckability, you imp…

Please go up and actually read the post you are responding to. It sounds like you agree with OP but are just being obstinate.

OP is using "fuckability" as an example of something that doesn't get attention to highlight we shouldn't have any special categories and indeed just "treat each other fairly".

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

#162

Post by leereeves »

PeterisP wrote: post #159
leereeves wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people should be free to choose whom to deal with, and imposing restrictions on it (like the protected groups) is morally justified as an exception only if required by important reasons That reason is the same for any marginalized group: "preventing the social harm done by X discrimination". Why not simplify the statement and say "preventing the social harm done by discrimination"? Accepting discrimination against…

Forcing people to work with someone against their will or preference also causes harm, and if society wants to do that it has to justify that the harm prevented is significantly greater than that - which is true for some types of discrimination and not true for others. If nobody in the village wants to work with Bob because he's an asshole, they should be able to discriminate against Bob (and other assholes) as the s…

Well, "I don't know if I believe anyone is 100% a dick-". Bob may be an asshole precisely because he's being discriminated against and that makes him angry. Our society seems to think that even the worst people, even murderers and thieves and rapists, can be rehabilitated and included.

But I see your point.

And I'm not arguing that no one should ever be allowed to discriminate for any reason. I'm simply flipping the script: instead of the default position being that discrimination is acceptable, discrimination should require justification.

Someone might be willing to publicly say "we don't hire assholes" and defend it. Go for it. It would be much harder to say "we don't hire short people" or "we don't hire dalits" and defend that.

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

#163

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

joshgachnang wrote: post #20
Natsu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study is kind of weird, because that's simply not how things are conducted during hiring: nobody puts their picture on their resume. I think some other countries do, but the norms are decidedly against that in the USA, probably to avoid biases like this.

But it is very common to go search out someone's LinkedIn, which does have a profile picture.

> LinkedIn, which does have a profile picture

Maybe yours does, but plenty don't.

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

#164

Post by jasfi »

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…

What about face-to-face or Zoom interviews? At some point you're going have to show your face. LinkedIn has also changed things a lot. It seems like a losing battle, in spite of the good intentions.

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

#165

Post by jglmn »

hoosieree wrote: post #103
RachelF wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

great show

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

#166

Post by TheDong »

erosenbe0 wrote: post #122
noirbot wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just generally easier to do more things well/professionally when you're well off and have the time to work on it or hire someone to do it. It's similar to the issues with standardized testing in schools. If your parents are wealthy and able to get you better test prep or tutoring, you'll do better on the test, and likely be actually more academically successful aside from it. It doesn't mean that one should tota…

If not mentioned or on the resume, explicitly asking whether a candidate has contributed to OSS or has done side projects outside of work is extremely inappropriate. The answer may be, "No, I attend temple nightly after going to occupational therapy for my disability and taking care of my children." Then you will have to document this for HR because you done gone messed up.

That answer is not proportionate to the question, and the question is totally fine.

You can ask a candidate "have you worked with React before". You can ask a candidate "It's not on your resume, but do you have security certifications". You can ask them "do you have any OSS projects you contribute to or like".

Those are all reasonable questions.

The imagined answer you mention "may" happen for any question. You didn't mess up if you ask "do you know React?" and the candidate answers "my last job used Vue, and I didn't have time to learn it on my own due to having 2 religions, 6 disabilities, and 12 kids, so no".

Asking a candidate for work-related experience is not "extremely inappropriate", and your imagined answer is not realistic.

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

#167

Post by lifeformed »

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #112
nostromo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of data out there showing that attractiveness, fitness (as in, not obese), and tallness are all massive biases in the workplace -- much bigger in many studies than biases around gender and ethnicity even. I don't know why these forms of identity are almost entirely ignored, while we obsess over others. Imagine if tech companies published the height, weight, and facial symmetry of their workforces, like…

I've always been amazed at the hypocrisy of all of this. A portion of attractiveness is culture-invariant, and quantifiable based on measurable factors such as facial symmetry. Study after study have demonstrated that humans innately treat attractive individuals better than others. Yet we obsess over skin colour and genitalia, without a single peep about the physical appearance discrimination that most humans take pa…

Two reasons: Short people have not faced anywhere near the scale of injustices as Black people in America historically have, so there is not much of a cultural desire to right the wrongs done to short people or people with slightly lower facial symmetry.

Secondly, all those characteristics are subjective, and are continuous measurements, not discrete properties. How do you define short or unattractive?

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

#168

Post by bee_rider »

version_five wrote: post #15
oh_sigh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is a bad question to ask. In fact, there might even be negative biases against attractiveness for engineers. Will a dude with cheeto dust on his star wars t-shirt give a fair shake to a good looking woman who is wearing business attire and makeup, compared to another dude in a t-shirt? Let's do a test. Who would you imagine is the better engineer of these two old timey people? https://i.imgur.com/omR…

There is definitely (well, anecdotally) negative bias against "well put together" attractive engineers. Picture a software engineer, male or female, chances are your stereotype isn't a glamorous person in a flashy suit with an expensive haircut and grooming. And if you saw someone like that, you'd be suspicious of their technical ability. It's a sterotype, but it's not all that weird. I don't think it's necessarily a…

There's a sweet spot I think. Wearing a suit? Probably a business guy, not to be trusted. But raggedy T-Shirt? Ah, that's just unprofessional. The ideal male fashion icon: Mr. Rogers, classy but not trying too hard, everybody trusts a nice sweater with a collared shirt under.

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

#169

Post by isoprophlex »

Ntrails wrote: post #46
edent wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is extremely unusual for the UK. I know some European countries make a photo mandatory - but I've never seen it in the UK. I've reviewed a huge number of CVs - at SME and large companies. I think the only time I've ever seen a photo in that context was an auto-generated thing from LinkedIn.

Eh, I see a few photos on CVs here in the UK - typically on Euro candidates though (from memory). On the other hand I've seen all sorts of weird shit on CVs, it is part of the fun. From the guy giving himself 5/5 stars for inter-personal skills, to the obscure hobbies expanded on in great detail, to the hilarious email addresses. There is just a wide range of views on what a cv should contain. My views doubtless diff…

I once saw "Never drank alcohol after birth" under "personal details"

Power to you for living a healthy lifestyle but... you were big on chugging kegs before you were born?!

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

#170

Post by xenocratus »

lifeformed wrote: post #167
mrshadowgoose wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been amazed at the hypocrisy of all of this. A portion of attractiveness is culture-invariant, and quantifiable based on measurable factors such as facial symmetry. Study after study have demonstrated that humans innately treat attractive individuals better than others. Yet we obsess over skin colour and genitalia, without a single peep about the physical appearance discrimination that most humans take pa…

Two reasons: Short people have not faced anywhere near the scale of injustices as Black people in America historically have, so there is not much of a cultural desire to right the wrongs done to short people or people with slightly lower facial symmetry. Secondly, all those characteristics are subjective, and are continuous measurements, not discrete properties. How do you define short or unattractive?

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/715141

> Notably, the magnitude of the earnings disparities along the perceived attractiveness continuum, net of controls, rivals and/or exceeds in magnitude the black-white race gap and, among African-Americans, the black-white race gap and the gender gap in earnings

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