Well, isn't this the age old question!? I can't even tell you how many times this question has come up in research projects I have done over the past 2 years. In some situations it is simply a question that will never be answered. We will never truly know which came first. Last spring I conducted some research in my Instructional Communication class. Though popular instructional research lends itself to studying variables such as immediacy (physical and psychological closeness), clarity, responsiveness, student and teacher misbehaviors, behavior alteration techniques, etc., I was not too interested in focusing on any of these. Instead. I wanted to look at physical attraction and how that impacted student misbehaviors.
This semester in our class, we spent much time discussing how we find beauty in our society, as well as what the 'good' and 'bad' girl typically look like. Should they be blond and wear pearls to be attractive? Or should women be dark headed, sultry ladies with a red shade of lip color? Either way, these discussions brought me back to my research. I was interested in seeing if there was a direct correlation between perceived physical attractiveness and student misbehaviors. Little did I know, I was getting myself into quite a mess. As I continued reading on the topic, I found that physical attractiveness had been linked to increased credibility, immediacy behaviors (smiling, calling students by name, humor, etc.), student motives to communicate, etc. As an instructor myself, I thought it would be interesting to find out just how important attractiveness is.
Is this attractiveness based on simple human nature or did society create this apparent need to be attractive? Well, either way, I found it is VERY important, especially in the classroom. In the psychology research, studies have shown that perceived physical attraction increases perceived credibility. Findings also show that perceived credibility increases perceived attractiveness. So, we come back to the question of what came first. Research supports both. Using McCroskey's Source Credibility Scale, instructors have been rated by students on the three dimensions of competence, goodwill, and trustworthiness. To think, being good looking impacts all of these things! Can't you just be smart? If that was not enough to report on, I also found that physical attractiveness is impacted by instructor immediacy, clarity, and communicative style. At this point, there is no real scale to measure student misbehaviors, only a few categories such as not turning in work, showing up late to class, being absent, basically the things that instructors find disrespectful. I initially thought that maybe attractiveness was curvilinear, that at some point you could be so attractive it caused students to disrespect you more. Maybe future research will pinpoint an answer, but for now, the journey continues.
It is incredible the amount of importance our society places on beauty. As I go into job interviews, I find myself quickly thinking - Is my lipstick on? Am I wearing a flattering outfit? Is my hair looking fabulous? What does this person think of me? Even in my own classroom, I find myself wishing I could get a quick glance in the mirror to make sure my walk across campus didn't mess up my hair, because I know my students are examining my every move. I think it would be fascinating to research this further based on age group. I would predict findings would suggest that the older kids (high school and college) would place more emphasis on attractiveness as far as affect for the instructor is concerned. This would also be a fruitful study on the basis of gender. Just some food for thought.
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