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Mating motives are neither necessary nor sufficient to create the beauty premium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2017

Sebastian Hafenbrädl  and
Jason Dana
Sebastian Hafenbrädl
Affiliation:
School of Management, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511. sebastian.hafenbraedl@yale.edu jason.dana@yale.edu http://som.yale.edu/jason-dana
Jason Dana
Affiliation:
School of Management, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511. sebastian.hafenbraedl@yale.edu jason.dana@yale.edu http://som.yale.edu/jason-dana
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Abstract

Mating motives lead decision makers to favor attractive people, but this favoritism is not sufficient to create a beauty premium in competitive settings. Further, economic approaches to discrimination, when correctly characterized, could neatly accommodate the experimental and field evidence of a beauty premium. Connecting labor economics and evolutionary psychology is laudable, but mating motives do not explain the beauty premium.

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Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e29
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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