Role effect on beauty premium: Female as proposer may gain more fairness.

Abstract

Beauty premium permeates every aspect of life. However, whether females' roles, as proposers or as recipients/responders, have an influence on the marginal effect of beauty remains unclear and was explored in the current study. Dictator game and ultimate game were employed to investigate the effect of females' roles on beauty premium from males. Participants played against female recipients and proposers in Study 1. Linear regression models of social preferences with respect to female attractiveness showed a strongly positive marginal effect of beauty, and the effect was significantly higher when participants played against female recipients than female proposers. Study 2 with ultimate games only was conducted for further testing the effect of strategic behavior on beauty premium. A probabilistic method was established to handle issues on comparison between participants' behaviors as proposers and as recipients/responders. The results of these studies suggest that there are significant money forgone differences between females as proposers and as recipients/responders financially regardless of the strategy-or-not decision difference. All the findings indicate that the beauty premium varies with female roles.