Belief in the malleability of beauty makes people take more risks, study finds

It is hard not to admit the pervasive impact that beauty has on our lives. As of 2023, beauty is the third most popular category among global Instagram influencers, only after music and lifestyle. The ever-growing cosmetics industry valued at 758.4 billion U.S. dollars by 2025—higher than the GDP of Belgium, which is ranked 23rd of the major economies—is evidence that we do care about beauty.

With all these beautification methods available to us, have you ever wondered if your beauty is something that you can really improve, or is it something you are born with?

There is research that shows that, just like personality, intelligence, or morality, people also seem to hold different lay beliefs and mindsets about beauty—some believe that beauty is fixed and cannot be changed, whereas others may believe that beauty is malleable and can be improved with effort.

In our previous work, we have seen that these mindsets about beauty can affect consumers’ cosmetic consumption. But we got even more curious—given the pervasive roles that beauty has in many areas of our lives, will the influences of these beauty mindsets extend to other domains beyond beauty?

In a recent study, we found that a growth mindset of beauty (i.e., believing that beauty can be improved) will lead people to take more risks.

How does a growth mindset of beauty lead to more risk-taking?

To explore how mindsets of beauty influence risk-taking behaviors, we conducted a series of experiments among more than 4,000 participants in different countries. The work is published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

We found that people who believed that beauty is improvable took greater risks than others who believed that beauty is fixed.

For instance, they were more likely to take financial risks (e.g., more likely to favor “a 20% chance of winning $800 and 80% chance of winning nothing” over “an 80% chance of winning $200 and a 20% chance of winning nothing” in a decision-making scenario) or physical risks (e.g., likely to engage in hiking a potentially unsafe trail or going down a potentially dangerous ski slope).

Why is this happening?

We observed that risk-taking increases as the result of heightened optimism. Specifically, believing beauty can be improved produces the optimistic feelings that one will achieve positive outcomes in many domains of life.

This happens because beauty is thought to have a broad impact in various areas, more so than other human attributes such as intelligence or morality. Indeed, given the known benefits of being beautiful– such that beautiful people are seen as more trustworthy, more competent, and have better social skills—there seems to be an expectation that attractive people should achieve more desirable life outcomes.

What’s the lesson here?

If you tend to believe that beauty is malleable and can be changed, the next time you are about to make a decision that may involve some degree of risk, be sure to pause and think about how these beliefs may affect your decisions.

You may feel optimistic that positive outcomes will happen in many areas of your life, but it is important to consider your choices carefully and rationally to avoid any unrealistic optimism.

This story is part of Science X Dialog, where researchers can report findings from their published research articles. Visit this page for information about Science X Dialog and how to participate.

Natalie Truong Faust is an Assistant Professor of marketing at Nova School of Business and Economics (Portugal). Iris W. Hung is the Presidential Fellow and Professor of Marketing at the Chinese University of Hongkong, Shenzhen (China).