A large study examining crimes tried in courts found that physically attractive defendants often come off lighter than unattractive ones. Other studies found that even when crimes are not real, test subjects gave longer sentences to uglier people than attractive ones. Some studies found that smiling people tend to get lower sentences. The expression of remorse can also influence a juries decision.

Judged based on looks

People assume that good looking people are as great as they look. <ul><li>Some studies suggest that the beauty bias can be overcome in the courtroom by spending more time considering the problem of guilt.</li><li>In the workplace, a standardised approach should be taken when hiring someone, such as assuring that meaningful things, like qualifications and evidence, and highlighted while downplaying trivialities like looks. </li></ul>

How to correct the beauty bias

<div dir="ltr">
 <h2 data-type="text" dir="ltr">Justice is not blind to beauty.</h2>
</div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">
 
 </div></div>13 August, 2021</div><img alt="Beauty bias: hopefully the judge finds you attractive" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNzIyMjQxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY4NzI3ODA4N30.jtHLPpdWSVg5CN1WoWPwioYIc0oix51m2uUrLjxpsAk/img.jpg?width=1245&amp;quality=85&amp;coordinates=0%2C0%2C2%2C0&amp;height=700" width="703" height="395"><UL><LI>Despite our attempts to be unbiased, people often judge others based on looks alone. </LI><LI>In the courtroom, physically attractive defendants often get lighter sentences than others. </LI><LI>We unconsciously assume that attractive people are as great as they look.</LI></UL>Try as we might, humans often struggle to be the rational, unbiased creatures that we aspire to be. We routinely fall victim to cognitive biases, systemic errors in our thinking, and the glitches in our institutions that perpetuate them. One such case is the repeated finding that attractive people and unattractive people often get different treatment in courts of law.<h2>Justice is not blind to beauty</h2>A large study examining crimes tried in courts noted that fines and bail levels tended to be greater for defendants rated as less attractive by<a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-11218-001" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr"> observers</a>. Another older<a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1981-05341-001" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr"> study</a> produced similar results for a variety of sentences, with better looking people serving less time. (However, the study did not find that they were convicted less overall.)A number of studies using simulated juries suggests that this bias exists even when the crimes in question are not real. One simulation found that test subjects gave longer sentences to uglier people than to attractive ones for the same fictitious<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2466/pr0.1997.81.2.679" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr"> crime</a> when given pictures to look at. Another found that test subjects were less certain of the guilt of attractive<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0092656674900440?via%3Dihub" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr"> people</a>.Some of the studies into this phenomenon find similar effects for other non-relevant details about those accused of crimes. One found that smiling does wonders for people accused of crimes: they tend to get lower sentences than otherwise<a href="https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.depaul.edu/docview/199834355?OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:primo&amp;accountid=10477" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr"> expected</a>. Another found that the expression of remorse — which is often independent of the feeling — can seriously impact how a jury decides to act.Because there is nothing new under the sun, this is not limited to modern America either. The ancient Greek story of Phryne the courtesan tells us that a Greek jury decided against finding her guilty of impiety on the grounds that a woman so beautiful must be in the good graces of the gods.<img src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201245%20700'%3E%3C/svg%3E" width="623" height="350"><h2>The good, the bad, and the ugly</h2><div class="embed-placeholder" data-type="youtube" data-id="BzG0_aU_Fn0"></div>In general, we seem to associate attractiveness with virtue. This "attractiveness bias" causes people to assume that more attractive people are smarter, saner, more sociable, and more<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4757567/" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr"> competent</a> than the ugly. Even babies seem to have this bias, being much more willing to pay attention to good looking people than others.Studies also suggest — and this is not much of a surprise — that the attractive are more popular, make more money, and report less anxiety than others. The causes of these outcomes remain up for debate, though one can suppose that the aforementioned stereotypes likely make it easier for them to make friends and secure good jobs. The existence of this bias in hiring is well known and is considered a problem in some circles.An interdisciplinary<a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/70e45e152aa065eeca264a069ea47181/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&amp;cbl=47829" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr"> take</a> on why we have this bias suggests that the explanation may be fairly simple: people act nicely to attractive people because we are attracted to them. They argue that the shift in behavior many people have in the presence of beautiful individuals is in line with the predictions of evolutionary psychology.<h2>Is there a way to correct this bias?</h2><div class="embed-placeholder" data-type="youtube" data-id="8kscrS-_C7s"></div>Some studies suggest that the courtroom manifestation of the bias can be overcome by jurors and test subjects spending more time considering the<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.102.3.727-733" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr"> problem</a> of guilt, though others suggest this method may be inconsistent.The beauty bias pops up everywhere. When it comes to hiring, several authorities suggest taking a standardized approach to dealing with people to assure that meaningful things, like qualifications and evidence, are highlighted while trivialities, like looks, are<a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/how-to-avoid-beauty-bias-when-hiring.aspx" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr"> downplayed</a>.Humans unconsciously assume that good looking people are as great as they look. This bias is deeply ingrained and unlikely just to vanish. If you have a court date anytime soon, go dressed in your best attire. And if you are guilty, at least pretend to be sorry.<div>Related Articles Around the Web</div>One person's utopia is another's dystopia: A world map of five superstates.<div dir="ltr">
 Image: public domain
 </div><UL><LI>Unity is strength: This 1920s map divides the world among just five superstates.</LI><LI>The map was produced by count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, who devoted his life to European unity.</LI><LI>This utopian map may have inspired George Orwell's dystopian world in 1984. </LI></UL><div dir="ltr">
 Keep reading
 
 </div><div dir="ltr">
 <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/_9a-3NO5KJE" dir="ltr">Credit</a>: Sid Balachandran via Unsplash
 </div><UL><LI>Pandas are natural born carnivores, yet two million years ago, they made the odd choice to become completely herbivorous, eating mostly bamboo.</LI><LI>Conservation charities use "charismatic megafauna" like the panda because they make for good promotional material and are more likely to elicit donations. </LI><LI>But focusing on cute creatures risks underfunding other important endangered animals and warping our sense of biodiversity and ecology.</LI></UL><div dir="ltr">
 Keep reading
 
 </div><div dir="ltr">
 <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/ZTwy6lj1sSA" dir="ltr">Credit</a>: Ilona Panych via Unsplash
 </div>This <a href="https://www.freethink.com/science/what-is-static-electricity" dir="ltr">article</a> was originally published by our sister site, Freethink.Somewhere on Northwestern's campus may be the answer to a 2600-year-old mystery: exactly where static electricity comes from. Every known material creates it, and it is often disproportionately powerful compared to the amount of energy it takes to create. Yet, amazingly, this everyday electrical phenomenon had no widely accepted scientific explanation — perhaps, until now.The solution, hidden in a dense thicket of math, was created by Alex Lin and Christopher Mizzi, two Northwestern doctoral students working in the lab of Professor Laurence Marks. Their answer lies in microscopic protrusions on a material's surface, and in two old physics concepts that had been overlooked for decades.If the model holds up, it may have broad practical applications, helping scientists suppress static sparks where they can be dangerous — and perhaps even harnessing static electricity to power medical devices or to boost wind generators.<h2>What Causes Static Electricity?</h2>"Everybody has seen triboelectricity," says Marks, in his low, laconic English accent, using the scientific term for static electricity. "But when you start asking 'well, why does it occur?' nobody really knows. Or at least nobody knew, at least as far as I'm concerned."The first record of the phenomena in the Western world was in 600 BC. Thales of Miletus, the father of Greek philosophy, rubbed a piece of amber against fur. His newly charged pelt began attracting dust like a copy of Infinite Jest. Since then, many theories for what causes static electricity followed; none have been accepted by everyone.Marks thought the answer might lie in two phenomena we already understand: friction and flexoelectricity. Friction is well understood and clearly crucial to static electricity, somehow, as anyone who has rubbed their socks on carpet can attest. The other component (flexoelectricity) is a bit more exotic. All materials have a molecular structure, and when that structure is bent in irregular ways, that shifting can create an electric charge. Marks thought that combining these two concepts might create a useful model for triboelectricity."I eventually persuaded Alex (Lin) and Chris (Mizzi) — with a little encouragement — and they did most of the work," Marks laughs. Lin and Mizzi, bouncing ideas off Marks, pushed forward for half a year before arriving at their model. Even surfaces that look completely flat are covered with small protrusions at the nanoscale. When these tiny protrusions rub against each other, thanks to friction, they create flexoelectricity; the charge created by this effect causes what we call static electricity. It's a beautifully simple model, made from well-worn parts, even as the processes it explains are complex.<img src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20640%20526'%3E%3C/svg%3E" width="640" height="526">The Marks lab believes that tiny protrusions on the surface of materials generate polarization when they are bent. This effect, known as flexoelectricity, is then what causes static electricity. Credit: Schematic courtesy of Laurence Marks/NorthwesternBut to prove it, Lin and Mizzi had to pour through the scientific record, looking for equations that modeled friction and flexoelectricity. Shower thinking punctuated the process, stepping away as they danced with the millennia-old mystery. They searched papers online, gathering all the equations they might need, then working through the math by hand, until finally the cloud of numbers and symbols coalesced into a model that really worked. "Ultimately, we wanted to capture the big picture of it," Lin says.The model makes sense, says Michael McAlpine, a professor of engineering at the University of Minnesota. "It's such a simple explanation, I was surprised I didn't put my finger on that," McAlpine says. The Occam's Razor-approved end result, and the fact that the model builds off tried and true equations, make the model attractive as well.The model provides a convincing explanation for static electricity produced between the same kind of material, but what causes it in other types of material — say, a liquid rubbing against a gas — will need to be tested against the model too. Every material on earth can create static electricity, so there's no shortage of test subjects.<h2>The Upshot</h2>If the model proves accurate, the applications could be broad. Nanogenerators are tiny devices that harvest the surprisingly robust energy of static electricity. With enough basic knowledge, we could begin using the power of any friction against any material.Triboelectric power has plenty of potential, says Wenzhuo Wu, an assistant professor of engineering at Purdue. If the basics of static electricity are better understood, we could maximize the efficiency of wind or wave power generators, Wu says. The body's own movement could be used to power internal medical devices. Imagine being able to create a roof shaped to harness the power of a raindrop — the friction of the rain passing over the surface — to generate triboelectricity, powering the building below it.Or the model may help do the exact opposite. Basic knowledge can lead to better controlling, or even eliminating, static electricity. The phenomena is shockingly dangerous in any environment where you need to avoid a spark. An accurate understanding of what causes triboelectricity can lay the groundwork for how to prevent it."People have been thinking about this, and also experiencing this, without even realizing what they were experiencing for a very long time," Mizzi says. "The scope of that is really neat and humbling."

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

<ul><li>Despite our attempts to be unbiased, people often judge others based on looks alone. </li><li>In the courtroom, physically attractive defendants often get lighter sentences than others. </li><li>We unconsciously assume that attractive people are as great as they look. </li> </ul>

Try as we might, humans often struggle to be the rational, unbiased creatures that we aspire to be. We routinely fall victim to cognitive biases, systemic errors in our thinking, and the glitches in our institutions that perpetuate them.

One such case is the repeated finding that attractive people and unattractive people often get different treatment in courts of law.

A large study examining crimes tried in courts noted that fines and bail levels tended to be greater for defendants rated as less attractive by<a dir="ltr" href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-11218-001" rel="noopener noreferrer">observers </a>. Another older<a dir="ltr" href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1981-05341-001" rel="noopener noreferrer">study </a>produced similar results for a variety of sentences, with better looking people serving less time. (However, the study did not find that they were convicted less overall.)

A number of studies using simulated juries suggests that this bias exists even when the crimes in question are not real. One simulation found that test subjects gave longer sentences to uglier people than to attractive ones for the same fictitious<a dir="ltr" href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2466/pr0.1997.81.2.679" rel="noopener noreferrer">crime </a>when given pictures to look at. Another found that test subjects were less certain of the guilt of attractive<a dir="ltr" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0092656674900440?via%3Dihub" rel="noopener noreferrer">people </a>.

Some of the studies into this phenomenon find similar effects for other non-relevant details about those accused of crimes. One found that smiling does wonders for people accused of crimes: they tend to get lower sentences than otherwise<a dir="ltr" href="https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.depaul.edu/docview/199834355?OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:primo&amp;accountid=10477" rel="noopener noreferrer">expected </a>. Another found that the expression of remorse — which is often independent of the feeling — can seriously impact how a jury decides to act.

Because there is nothing new under the sun, this is not limited to modern America either. The ancient Greek story of Phryne the courtesan tells us that a Greek jury decided against finding her guilty of impiety on the grounds that a woman so beautiful must be in the good graces of the gods.

In general, we seem to associate attractiveness with virtue. This "attractiveness bias" causes people to assume that more attractive people are smarter, saner, more sociable, and more<a dir="ltr" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4757567/" rel="noopener noreferrer">competent </a>than the ugly. Even babies seem to have this bias, being much more willing to pay attention to good looking people than others.

Studies also suggest — and this is not much of a surprise — that the attractive are more popular, make more money, and report less anxiety than others. The causes of these outcomes remain up for debate, though one can suppose that the aforementioned stereotypes likely make it easier for them to make friends and secure good jobs. The existence of this bias in hiring is well known and is considered a problem in some circles.

An interdisciplinary<a dir="ltr" href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/70e45e152aa065eeca264a069ea47181/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&amp;cbl=47829" rel="noopener noreferrer">take </a>on why we have this bias suggests that the explanation may be fairly simple: people act nicely to attractive people because we are attracted to them. They argue that the shift in behavior many people have in the presence of beautiful individuals is in line with the predictions of evolutionary psychology.

Some studies suggest that the courtroom manifestation of the bias can be overcome by jurors and test subjects spending more time considering the<a dir="ltr" href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.102.3.727-733" rel="noopener noreferrer">problem </a>of guilt, though others suggest this method may be inconsistent.

The beauty bias pops up everywhere. When it comes to hiring, several authorities suggest taking a standardized approach to dealing with people to assure that meaningful things, like qualifications and evidence, are highlighted while trivialities, like looks, are<a dir="ltr" href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/how-to-avoid-beauty-bias-when-hiring.aspx" rel="noopener noreferrer">downplayed </a>.

Humans unconsciously assume that good looking people are as great as they look. This bias is deeply ingrained and unlikely just to vanish. If you have a court date anytime soon, go dressed in your best attire. And if you are guilty, at least pretend to be sorry.

One person's utopia is another's dystopia: A world map of five superstates.

<ul><li>Unity is strength: This 1920s map divides the world among just five superstates. </li><li>The map was produced by count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, who devoted his life to European unity. </li><li>This utopian map may have inspired George Orwell's dystopian world in 1984 . </li> </ul>

<ul><li>Pandas are natural born carnivores, yet two million years ago, they made the odd choice to become completely herbivorous, eating mostly bamboo. </li><li>Conservation charities use "charismatic megafauna" like the panda because they make for good promotional material and are more likely to elicit donations. </li><li>But focusing on cute creatures risks underfunding other important endangered animals and warping our sense of biodiversity and ecology. </li> </ul>

This <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.freethink.com/science/what-is-static-electricity">article </a>was originally published by our sister site, Freethink.

Somewhere on Northwestern's campus may be the answer to a 2600-year-old mystery: exactly where static electricity comes from. Every known material creates it, and it is often disproportionately powerful compared to the amount of energy it takes to create. Yet, amazingly, this everyday electrical phenomenon had no widely accepted scientific explanation — perhaps, until now.

The solution, hidden in a dense thicket of math, was created by Alex Lin and Christopher Mizzi, two Northwestern doctoral students working in the lab of Professor Laurence Marks. Their answer lies in microscopic protrusions on a material's surface, and in two old physics concepts that had been overlooked for decades.

If the model holds up, it may have broad practical applications, helping scientists suppress static sparks where they can be dangerous — and perhaps even harnessing static electricity to power medical devices or to boost wind generators.

"Everybody has seen triboelectricity," says Marks, in his low, laconic English accent, using the scientific term for static electricity. "But when you start asking 'well, why does it occur?' nobody really knows. Or at least nobody knew, at least as far as I'm concerned."

The first record of the phenomena in the Western world was in 600 BC. Thales of Miletus, the father of Greek philosophy, rubbed a piece of amber against fur. His newly charged pelt began attracting dust like a copy of Infinite Jest. Since then, many theories for what causes static electricity followed; none have been accepted by everyone.

Marks thought the answer might lie in two phenomena we already understand: friction and flexoelectricity. Friction is well understood and clearly crucial to static electricity, somehow, as anyone who has rubbed their socks on carpet can attest.

The other component (flexoelectricity) is a bit more exotic. All materials have a molecular structure, and when that structure is bent in irregular ways, that shifting can create an electric charge. Marks thought that combining these two concepts might create a useful model for triboelectricity.

"I eventually persuaded Alex (Lin) and Chris (Mizzi) — with a little encouragement — and they did most of the work," Marks laughs. Lin and Mizzi, bouncing ideas off Marks, pushed forward for half a year before arriving at their model.

Even surfaces that look completely flat are covered with small protrusions at the nanoscale. When these tiny protrusions rub against each other, thanks to friction, they create flexoelectricity; the charge created by this effect causes what we call static electricity. It's a beautifully simple model, made from well-worn parts, even as the processes it explains are complex.

The Marks lab believes that tiny protrusions on the surface of materials generate polarization when they are bent. This effect, known as flexoelectricity, is then what causes static electricity.

Credit: Schematic courtesy of Laurence Marks/Northwestern

But to prove it, Lin and Mizzi had to pour through the scientific record, looking for equations that modeled friction and flexoelectricity. Shower thinking punctuated the process, stepping away as they danced with the millennia-old mystery. They searched papers online, gathering all the equations they might need, then working through the math by hand, until finally the cloud of numbers and symbols coalesced into a model that really worked.

"Ultimately, we wanted to capture the big picture of it," Lin says.

The model makes sense, says Michael McAlpine, a professor of engineering at the University of Minnesota. "It's such a simple explanation, I was surprised I didn't put my finger on that," McAlpine says. The Occam's Razor-approved end result, and the fact that the model builds off tried and true equations, make the model attractive as well.

The model provides a convincing explanation for static electricity produced between the same kind of material, but what causes it in other types of material — say, a liquid rubbing against a gas — will need to be tested against the model too. Every material on earth can create static electricity, so there's no shortage of test subjects.

If the model proves accurate, the applications could be broad. Nanogenerators are tiny devices that harvest the surprisingly robust energy of static electricity. With enough basic knowledge, we could begin using the power of any friction against any material.

Triboelectric power has plenty of potential, says Wenzhuo Wu, an assistant professor of engineering at Purdue. If the basics of static electricity are better understood, we could maximize the efficiency of wind or wave power generators, Wu says.

The body's own movement could be used to power internal medical devices. Imagine being able to create a roof shaped to harness the power of a raindrop — the friction of the rain passing over the surface — to generate triboelectricity, powering the building below it.

Or the model may help do the exact opposite. Basic knowledge can lead to better controlling, or even eliminating, static electricity. The phenomena is shockingly dangerous in any environment where you need to avoid a spark. An accurate understanding of what causes triboelectricity can lay the groundwork for how to prevent it.

"People have been thinking about this, and also experiencing this, without even realizing what they were experiencing for a very long time," Mizzi says. "The scope of that is really neat and humbling."

Beauty bias: hopefully the judge finds you attractive

Judged based on looks

How to correct the beauty bias

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