A man who has taken aboard two or three cocktails is less competent than he was before to steer a battleship down the Ambrose Channel, or to cut off a leg, or to draw up a deed of trust, or to conduct Bach’s B minor mass, but he is immensely more competent to entertain a dinner party, to admire a pretty girl, or to hear Bach’s B minor mass…

All this is so obvious that I marvel that no utopian has ever proposed to abolish all the sorrows of the world by the simple device of getting and keeping the whole human race gently stewed.

(‘Portrait of an Ideal World’, The American Mercury, 1924, p. 101)

Most reality television shows end with a legal disclaimer, informing viewers that contestant decisions were made in consultation with the show’s producers. In which case the decisions being made are probably not actually biased: viewers clearly have a preference for attractiveness in contestants, particularly if we normalize for the other traits which are associated with popular reality show contestants (consider contestants such as Ruben Studdard or Richard Hatch, who are not particularly attractive but are interesting to watch for other reasons).

As a sort of control, we ought to measure this effect in game situations where the contest is not televised.

Participants in the tipsy group may have rated the faces as being more attractive relative to themselves, rather than more attractive in an absolute sense. So they might rate others as better and more cooperative, but rate themselves as being less so. Or perhaps being tipsy simply makes people kinder and more willing to say that others are attractive without actually believing it.

I suggest filming a series of Shafted in which all of the contestants are tipsy, and predict a weakening of the actual attractiveness/percieved cooperativeness link, as contestants would view almost all other players as attractive and therefore cooperative. If I am correct, drinking alcohol may be a powerful method of overcoming inter-personal bias.

If the producers are not involved, then the people choosing attractiveness over skill are not strategic in the least bit and do not frighten me as a competitor. Not only am I smart, but I am hot too, so I have nothing to worry about anyway. (Does that sound too much like EY?)