The Beauty Bias and Leader Emergence: A Theoretical Integration, Extension, and Meta-Analysis
通过元分析发现，外貌吸引力显著影响领导者涌现，主要通过感知温暖和感知能力两个机制，且该效应在非正式领导情境中更强，在集体主义文化中略强，但不受领导者性别影响。
Leader emergence is a critical organizational phenomenon, influenced by various individual attributes. One such attribute—often overlooked by scholars and practitioners—is physical attractiveness. This study provides a comprehensive meta-analysis of the beauty bias and its relationship to leader emergence. We first review implicit leadership and status generalization theories as the dominant frameworks explaining this bias. Next, we assess the magnitude of the physical attractiveness–leader emergence relationship and test the “beauty is beastly” effect by evaluating leader gender as a moderator. We also identify two key mechanisms—perceived warmth and perceived competence—that explain this relationship. Additionally, we explore the robustness of the beauty bias across different contexts, including observer characteristics, leadership roles, and national culture. Our findings confirm that physical attractiveness is significantly related to leader emergence, primarily through perceptions of warmth, but also through perceptions of competence. This relationship holds equally for male and female leaders and is stronger in informal leadership contexts. It is slightly more pronounced among college students than full-time employees and in collectivist rather than individualistic national cultures, yet remains equally strong across executive and non-executive leadership roles. Overall, our findings highlight the strength and consistency of the physical attractiveness–leader emergence relationship, underscoring the need for organizations to mitigate the beauty bias from influencing decisions around leader emergence.