To conduct an experiment, 20/20 hired actors——some great looking, some not——and put them in situations to gauge how often the "lookers" would get preferential treatment.

In the first test, we put two women next to cars without gas in Atlanta. The women wore the same outfit.

Both Michelle and Tracey stood helplessly by cars with their hoods up. For the average-looking Michelle, a few pedestrians stopped but only made suggestions as where she could walk to get gasoline. But for the beautiful Tracey, cars came screeching to a halt. More than a dozen cars stopped and six people went to get Tracey gas.

The two actresses helped with our second test, at an Atlanta shopping mall where both women set up a table and sold calendars and teddy bears to raise money for charity. Overall, it looked as if both women were doing well with their sales. Then we counted the money and found Tracey collected 50 percent more.

What if we tested something requiring qualifications, like getting a job? Looks shouldn't matter then but would they?

20/20 hired two women to apply for jobs. The clearest difference between them was looks while they shared similar education and work experience backgrounds. To match them up more closely, we rewrote their résumés to match.

Donia, our more attractive female applicant, and her counterpart, Amy, both had been secretaries and saleswomen. A consultant trained them so their behavior matched.

Hidden cameras captured interviewers being warmer and friendlier to the better looking applicants and being less friendly to the other applicants. With Amy and Donia, for example, one job interviewer told Amy employees got a 45-minute lunch break but with Donia the interviewer said there was a flexible policy about lunch. Who got the job offer? Donia. Amy never even got a call back.

"It's a non-conscious process," said Tom Cash, a psychologist at Old Dominion University. "They assume that more attractive people have an array of valued characteristics."

We should add the bias of "lookism" to sexism and racism. It's just as bad but we don't need a federal program.

為了做一個試驗，"20/20"節目雇用了演員。有些人容貌出眾，有些人卻不是。但把演員們放在特定環境下，看看“漂亮人”是如何常常得到優待的。

在第一次試驗中，在亞特蘭大，我們讓兩位女演員穿戴一樣，分別站在沒有汽油的車旁。

Michelle和Tracey引擎罩打開著，絕望無助地站在車旁。相貌平平的Michelle只能讓幾位行人駐足，但他們也只是為她指出如何加油的路，而美貌Tracey的待遇卻大不相同。許多車子為她猛然剎車，一打以上的車主停車，6個人要為Tracey加油。

兩位女演員又幫助我們做了第二個試驗。在一家亞特蘭大購物中心，兩人都設攤慈善義賣日歷和玩具熊。從表面上看，她們賣得一樣好，可是數錢時卻發現，Tracey的收入要高出50%.

如果我們實驗某些需要資格的事情，比如應聘，結果會如何呢？容貌會起到什么作用呢？

"20/20"節目組雇用了兩位女人參加應聘，她們有相似的教育和工作經驗背景，但容貌卻大不相同。為了使她們更接近，我們改寫了她們的履歷。

Donia是我們非常迷人的女求職者，與她搭檔的Amy，兩人都曾當過秘書和銷售人員。一位顧問專門對她們進行了訓練，使她們的舉止相同。

暗藏的攝像機捕獲了主聘人員對相貌好看的應聘者十分熱情和友好，而對其它應征者則不友好。例如，招聘人員對Amy說，雇員只有45分鐘午飯休息時間，而卻對Donia說，午飯時間是有彈性的。誰得到工作了？當然是Donia.Amy則再也沒有接到回復電話。

Old Dominion大學的心理學家Tom Cash說：“這是一個無意識的過程，他們推測漂亮的人有更多富有價值的品質。”

我們應該在性別歧視和種族歧視之后再添一個“容貌歧視”，盡管它與前兩者一樣可惡，但對此并不需要聯邦立法。