You know, Socrates (at least according to Plato) spoke about this kind of phenomenon in a different context.

He observed how “the charm of youth,” in a culture where beautiful young men were epitomized as the ideal object of sexual attraction, forgave many faults and eroded much opposition to challenging ideas.

In other words, he observed that sexually attractive people got more intellectual leeway than other people.

Plato seemed to think Socrates believed the phenomenon was mostly unconscious. Socrates used himself as an example, citing his own attraction to the beautiful youth Alcibiades, implying that it made him more receptive to ideas he might not otherwise agree with.

I think sociologists have observed today that people recognized as attractive get promoted more often at work and make more money — even when their attractiveness has no impact on their performance, for example if they don’t have a public-facing job.

In cases like this, you’d have to think that what’s going on is often unconscious — managers responding favorably to people they find attractive without realizing they’re doing it.

In these examples with you and Yael, though, it looks like something much more conscious, and probably more cynical, is happening.

Obviously, or at least I think it’s obvious, that we all need to examine our unconscious biases. But maybe we should also be ready to call out conscious bias when it’s super obvious.