The physical attractiveness stereotype (PAS) is characterized by the belief that beauty is good and ugliness is bad. Although the belief is not encouraged, people still express “beauty is good” explicitly. However, expressing that ugliness is bad is considered impolite in public. In this study, the neural underpinnings of PAS were investigated, particularly the comparison of the neural processing of ugliness is bad and beauty is good. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, participants were asked to create trait-conformity judgments based on the facial attractiveness of the images. Our results showed that brain areas, including the fusiform, thalamus, anterior insula (AI), precuneus, inferior temporal gyrus, dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) were involved in the processing of PAS. The left AI, left dlPFC, and right dmPFC showed stronger activation for ugliness is bad than for the converse. Moreover, we found a stronger connectivity between the left dlPFC and AI in terms of ugliness is bad than in the converse. Our study suggests that participants were unwilling to express the stereotype of ugliness is bad, and more mental resources were needed to control its expression than the expression of beauty is good.

身体吸引力的刻板印象（PAS）的特征是相信美丽是好事，而丑陋是坏事。尽管不鼓励这种信念，但人们仍然明确表达“美是好的”。但是，在公众场合说丑陋是不好的，这是不礼貌的。在这项研究中，对PAS的神经基础进行了研究，特别是比较了丑陋的神经加工和美丽的美容。在功能磁共振成像扫描过程中，要求参与者根据图像的面部吸引力来创建性格符合性判断。我们的研究结果表明，包括梭形，丘脑，前岛（AI），前突神经，颞下回，背外侧前额叶皮层（dlPFC）和背内侧前额叶皮层（dmPFC）在内的大脑区域都参与了PAS的处理。左AI，左dlPFC和右dmPFC显示，对丑陋的激活比对相反的行为更强。此外，我们发现左侧dlPFC与AI之间的较丑陋的连接比与之相反的连接更差。我们的研究表明，参与者不愿意表达丑陋的刻板印象是不好的，比美的表达是好的，需要更多的精神资源来控制丑陋的表达。