Passage 1Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, but in the executive circle, beauty can become a liability.While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman. Handsome male executives were perceived as having more integrity than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to be causes for their success.Attractive female executives were considered to have less integrity than unattractive ones; their success was attributed not to ability but to factors such as luck.All unattractive women executives were thought to have more integrity and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was attributed more to personal relationships and less to ability than was that of attractive overnight successes.Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is perceived to be more feminine and an attractive man more masculine than the less attractive ones. Thus, an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally female jobs, but she, in a traditionally masculine position appears to lack the “masculine” qualities required.This is true even in politics. Anne Bowman, an American scholar, once asked 125 undergraduate students to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of women, in order of attractiveness. The students were then told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.The results showed that attractive males utterly defeated unattractive men, but the women who had been ranked most attractive invariably received the fewest votes.

The word “liability” in the first paragraph most probably means “__________”.