In everyday life, we are often faced with situations in which we must quickly decide whether to trust a stranger. In doing so, we often rely on stereotypes about the person’s visible characteristics, such as their gender, social class, and ethnicity, as well as the combination of these traits. This intersectionality may be important in Europe, where stereotypes about migrants, and particularly Muslim migrants, differ starkly by gender. Indeed, evidence from experimental and survey research shows that native Germans find men with Middle Eastern migration background less trustworthy than co-ethnic men, while no such gap exists for women. This gap may have negative consequences for men with a migration background, especially in contexts like hiring where trustworthiness is critical to success. However, migrant men are not a homogenous group, and other visible factors may moderate this effect. An additional factor which remains unexplored is physical attractiveness, a highly visible characteristic that has been shown to bias judgments of trustworthiness. In this study, we will evaluate whether highly attractive migrant men can close the trust gap.

To do so, we propose an experimental design using a standard trust game that will randomly vary the identity of the “returner” by facial attractiveness and ethnicity (“native” German, Greek, and Turkish as signaled by a first name) with an online sample in Germany. The returner’s identity will be displayed to “senders” drawn from a representative sample of the German general population using a headshot-style image stimulus drawn from several academic photo databases. In some conditions, senders and returners will be matched randomly, while in others, senders will be allowed to choose a returner from a few options to test whether they prefer to interact with more attractive and/or same-ethnicity partners.

Differences in the amount given in the first step to people of different ethnicities and levels of attractiveness will thus indicate any differences in the effect of facial attractiveness on trust. In addition, findings will indicate whether the beauty premium in trust exists at all in the German context, addressing a dearth of research on the topic outside the U.S. We also plan to investigate some potential mechanisms underlying the connection between ethnicity, physical attractiveness, and perceptions of trustworthiness by including additional questions about the respondents’ beliefs and stereotypes of their interaction partners and their risk attitudes as well as attitudes towards immigrants.