Hot ≠ Safe: Beware of the Sexual Halo Effect
How cognitive bias can affect our judgment in bed
You may have heard of the so-called halo effect, also referred to as the physical-attractiveness-stereotype, and the what-is-beautiful-is-also-good principle. Coined by psychologist Edward Thorndike in a 1920s paper titled The Constant Error in Psychological Ratings, the halo effect is the idea that having positive impressions of a person or company in one area will positively influence our feelings and opinions of them in another.
In commerce, it means that if a customer trusts a brand and likes their current products, they’re more likely to buy into new products launched by the same brand—without much question and hesitation.
It applies to the people in our lives. When we perceive someone to be good, honest, and decent, we expect more of that behavior and are less likely to believe negative things about them. Further, we’re more inclined to perceive someone as good, capable, or intelligent when we also find them attractive.
The halo effect is one of the reasons why we’re told that first impressions matter and that we only have one chance to make a good one. It’s why we dress up and groom for job interviews and first dates. Whether conscious or not, we want to put our best foot forward first, knowing that we’ll reap the benefits of it later.
This cognitive bias gives some people an unfair advantage. Studies have found that teachers have a tendency to expect more from students they find attractive and therefore give them more attention and follow up in the classroom. Individuals who are perceived as attractive, whether it be due to their physical appearance or a combination of that and their attitude, charm and charisma also have it easier in the workplace; they get hired faster, get away with doing less while earning more.
Whether we’re aware or not, we’re all influenced by this distortion of perception, it, therefore, makes perfect sense that it also applies to our dating and sex lives. We tend to believe someone to be a better match when we also find them physically attractive, which can, in turn, cause us to overlook red flags which would otherwise have turned us off.
I’ve recently written a few pieces about safe sex, especially in relation to hook-up culture and casual dating. In my opinion, suggesting bareback intercourse with a near-stranger, especially without discussing it beforehand, is irresponsible, entitled, and even manipulative. In my research, I was surprised to find that whether or not we prioritize safe sex is also influenced by our level of attraction to a partner. This can be referred to as a sexual halo effect.
A study by BMJ Open which included fifty-one heterosexual male participants between the ages of nineteen and sixty-one found that the more attractive a man finds a woman, the less likely he is to want to practice safe sex.
What is especially interesting is that even if a participant thought a woman potentially had a high risk of STIs—because while the men in the study would assume the more attractive women to be more promiscuous—he’d still perceive her as safer and less likely to give him something.
Lastly, the men who were more satisfied with their own appearance were also less likely to want to wear condoms, believing themselves to be a lower risk to their partners as well. The take-away from this is that the hotter someone perceives both themselves and their partners to be the less likely they are to worry about STIs.
A similar study of women by the University of Guelph finds that women, too, are less likely to press for safe sex with men they find attractive. Still, women were more insistent on condom use for casual encounters than both the straight and gay men in the study.
Looking back, I’m sure I’ve let my prejudice and level of attraction to someone sway my decisions, yet this connection never occurred to me.
Fortunately—or unfortunately depending on where you stand—microbes don’t discriminate based on looks and they sure as hell don’t care whether someone’s hot or not. Therefore, no matter where we stand in relation to safe sex, if we’re hooking up and find ourselves blinded by someone’s outer beauty, we might want to take a moment to close our eyes and think with our heads before letting our genitals lead the way.
Stay safe & stay sexy!
© Ena Dahl 2021
