Wearing heavy make-up may not be foundation for leadership success, study suggests
WOMEN who aspire to be great leaders should put down the lipstick and go easy on the mascara, a study suggests.
Researchers at Abertay University, Dundee, asked participants to view a series of computer-enhanced images of the same woman fresh-faced and then made up as if for a social night out.
They found that people judged heavily made-up women as having poorer leadership skills than those who had not used cosmetics.
Dr Christopher Watkins of Abertay’s Division of Psychology, said it was possible women with make-up were seen as more frivolous, even though previous research suggested it made women appear more dominant.
He said: “While the previous findings suggest that we are inclined to show some deference to a woman with a good-looking face, our research suggests that make-up does not enhance a woman’s dominance by benefiting how we evaluate her in a leadership role.”
The findings are in contrast to Harvard University research in 2016 which found that women who wore make-up were deemed more competent at their jobs and more likely to be promoted.
In 2013, a survey found that more than two thirds of British employers would be less likely to employ a female job applicant if she did not wear makeup to the job interview.
In the Abertay study each participant completed a face perception task where they judged 16 face-pairs, indicating how much better a leader they felt their chosen face to be compared to the other face. Both men and women evaluated women more negatively as a leader if the image suggested she was wearing a lot of make-up.
Previous studies have found that attractive people are more likely to be perceived as intelligent while 2016 research by the University of Chicago found that women at work who looked well-groomed earned significantly more than their less-preened peers.
The research was published in the journal Perception.