Social Engineering - Christopher Hadnagy [116]
One last aspect of liking that is important for you as a social engineer is physical attractiveness. Humans tend to automatically “like” those who we find attractive. As vain as that sounds, it is the truth. Some serious psychological principles back up this idea.
What is beautiful is good. In 1972 Berscheid, Walster, and Dion performed a study entitled just that, “What Is Beautiful Is Good,” which unleashed some very profound findings. Participants were asked to rate photos of three individuals ranging from low, medium, and high attractiveness. Based on the photos alone they were to rate the people for personality traits, overall happiness, and career success.
They then compiled the ratings and averaged them and found that people who were deemed attractive were more socially desirable, had better occupations, were happier, and more successful. The study proved that people tend to link beauty with other successful qualities and it alters their opinions and ability to trust someone.
This study is an example of a phenomenon called the halo effect, where one particular trait influences or extends to the other qualities of the person. It has been proven to bias a person’s decisions with a tendency to focus on the good traits of the other person. I have archived a copy of this amazing study at www.social-engineer.org/wiki/archives/BlogPosts/BeautifulGood.pdf.
In other words, if someone views you as beautiful, then that good trait extends to other judgments that person makes about you. This halo effect is often used in marketing. Beautiful people are given products to drink, eat, and wear, and other people will automatically assume these things are good, possibly thinking, “Well it must be good if this beautiful person is using it.”
Recently I saw an ad on television that really hit this point home—the ad makes fun of marketing efforts but does it very intelligently. An attractive young female comes on the screen wearing beautiful clothing and says, “Hi, I am a believably attractive 18–24 year old female.”
Using an attractive female who is not overly attractive, but believably real, someone we normal people can look up to is marketing genius. We can’t really tell her age but her beauty can place her somewhere between the ages of 18–24.
“You can relate to me because I am racially ambiguous.”
Again, this is another marketing genius tip. She is not black, white, or Native American—we can’t tell, but she may be a mix, which may be attractive to many races and is non-offensive to most.
“I am in this commercial because market research shows girls like you love girls like me.”
Her beauty and self-assuredness makes us like her; she is well dressed, well spoken, and we want to know her.
The camera then pans to different shots of her doing things like kickboxing, cheerleading, and playing with flowers. By showing viewers she can do all these things while being as beautiful as she is, we perceive her as strong and powerful, and all the things she’s doing as good.
“Now I am going to tell you to buy something…”
She then goes on to sell tampons. This commercial is genius, because the advertiser actually outlines, uses, and educates the consumer on the methods used to make you want to buy. But despite all that, within this commercial lies this principle of liking and the halo effect.
Knowing all this about the importance of liking, what can you do? I have a hard enough time becoming an attractive male, let alone an attractive female. Because endless runs to my local plastic surgeon are out, is there anything a social engineer can do to capitalize on this principle?
Know your target. Know what is and isn’t acceptable to him or her. How does he dress, and what does he consider bad and good? Too much jewelry, makeup, or other aspect of dress can turn off a target. Suppose you are auditing a doctor’s office