Do men help only beautiful women in social networks?

摘要

Is the Social Network profile photo important when women need help? In two field experiments (N = 681), male and female participants received a help request from a woman of below-average, above-average (Study 1 and 2), or a woman of unknown physical attractiveness (Study 2). Men (but not women) responded more often, answered more detailed, and were more helpful and friendlier to the above-average physical attractive woman (Study 1 and 2), but if they replied, they also answered friendlier to the woman of unknown physical attractiveness (Study 2). In Study 3, participants (N = 298) reported their hypothetical helping intention in an experimental setting. The findings from all three studies indicate that these results are most likely interpretable considering males' mating strategies and costly signal theory in contrast to the what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype or attention boost explanation.