Understanding the role of faces in person perception: Increased reliance on facial appearance when judging sociability

Faces play a central role in person perception. People spontaneously judge others’ personality based on their facial appearance and these impressions guide many consequential decisions. Under what conditions do people rely on facial appearance? Here, we test whether reliance on facial appearance depends on the goal of impression formation (i.e., on which trait dimension targets are evaluated). Trait impressions are, to a large extent, based on the resemblance of facial cues to emotion expressions. As emotional expressiveness is a central component of sociability, we hypothesized that people would more readily perceive sociability in faces. Across three preregistered studies (N = 1,436), we find that facial appearance is indeed seen as more indicative of a person’s sociability than their morality or competence. We find the same pattern when examining the influence of facial cues on judgment and decision-making. People are more confident in the accuracy of their trait impressions when judging sociability (vs. morality or competence; Study 1, n = 527), they value information on the facial appearance of job candidates more when looking for a sociable (vs. moral or competent) employee (Study 2, n = 390), and they view reliance on facial appearance when making hiring decisions as more appropriate and more effective when looking for a sociable (vs. moral or competent) employee (Study 3, n = 519). Together, our results provide converging evidence that people view facial appearance as especially relevant for judging a person’s sociability.

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Person perception across group boundaries: a dynamic model of perception across race and gender lines

10.32920/ryerson.14660763.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sally Yan-Jun Xie

Keyword(s):

Face Perception ◽

Impression Formation ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Person Perception ◽

Two Dimensions ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Modeling Framework ◽

Race And Gender ◽

And Gender ◽

Trait Impressions

People form impressions of others from their faces, inferring character traits (e.g., friendly) along two broad, influential dimensions: Warmth and Competence. Although these two dimensions are presumed to be independent, research has yet to examine the generalizability of this model to cross-group impressions, despite extant evidence that Warmth and Competence are not independent for outgroup targets. This thesis explores this possibility by testing models of person perception for own-group and other-group perceptions, implementing confirmatory factor analysis in a structural equation modeling framework, and analyzing the underlying trait space using representational similarity analysis. I fit 402,473 ratings of 873 unique faces from 5,040 participants on 14 trait impressions to own-group and other-group models, exploring whether perceptions across race and gender are more unidimensional. Results indicate that current models of face perception fit poorly and are not universal as presumed: the space of trait impressions varies depending on targets’ race and gender. Keywords: person perception, impression formation, face perception, intergroup processes, social cognition

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Face Value: Facial Appearance and Assessments of Politicians

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.62 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Colleen M. Carpinella ◽

Kerri L. Johnson

Keyword(s):

Gender Stereotypes ◽

Impression Formation ◽

Voting Behavior ◽

Visual Cues ◽

Psychological Research ◽

Facial Appearance ◽

Party Affiliation ◽

Facial Cues ◽

Female Politicians ◽

Underlying Mechanisms

The facial appearance of political candidates provides information to voters that can be vital to the impression-formation process. Traditionally, psychological research in the field of appearance-based politics has concentrated on investigating whether politicians’ physical appearance impacts perceptions of them. Recently, the focus has shifted from examining whether facial cues matter for impression formation to determining (1) which facial cues matter for voters’ perceptions of politicians and (2) how such visual cues are utilized within the political decision-making process. This shift in research focus has ushered in an appreciation of facial competence and physical attractiveness, and it has been marked by a renewed interest in studying how gender stereotypes impact the influence of politician appearance on perceptions of male and female politicians. In addition, this renewed interest in studying underlying mechanisms in appearance-based politics has spurred on research that includes a broader range of downstream consequences such as evaluations of leadership potential, voting behavior, and even basic political party affiliation categorizations.

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Matters Order: The Role of Information Order on Implicit Impression Formation

Social Psychological and Personality Science ◽

10.1177/1948550619843930 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 56-63 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Eva Fourakis ◽

Jeremy Cone

Keyword(s):

Impression Formation ◽

Implicit Association Test ◽

Person Perception ◽

Implicit Association ◽

Information Order ◽

Priming Task ◽

Test Study ◽

Affect Misattribution Procedure ◽

Role Of Information

A classic finding in the person perception literature is that information order is an important factor in the impressions we form of others. But how does order influence the formation of implicit evaluations? In three preregistered experiments including nearly 900 participants, we find evidence for a strong primacy effect even at the implicit level. This occurred on an affect misattribution procedure (Study 1), an evaluative priming task (Study 2), and an implicit association test (Study 3). These findings suggest that, just as explicit impressions are susceptible to primacy effects, so too are implicit ones. Implications for theories of evaluative conditioning and attitudes are discussed.

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Youths’ Facial Appearance Distinguishes Leaders From Followers in Group-Perpetrated Criminal Offenses and Is Associated With Sentencing Outcomes

Criminal Justice and Behavior ◽

10.1177/0093854819889645 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 47 (2) ◽

pp. 187-207

Author(s):

Jessica E. Sutherland ◽

Ana M. Cojocariu ◽

David M. Day ◽

Eric Hehman

Keyword(s):

Impression Formation ◽

Group Formation ◽

Peer Groups ◽

Facial Appearance ◽

Facial Cues ◽

Criminal Offenses ◽

Leaders And Followers ◽

Outcomes Study ◽

Perceptions Of Leadership ◽

Sentencing Outcomes

Group-perpetrated crime often involves leaders and followers, but it is not currently understood how peer groups form around leaders during a criminal incident. Impression formation research has shown that specific facial cues are associated with leadership and perceptions of leadership. We extend this research to leadership among group-perpetrated youth crime and examine its role in downstream sentencing outcomes. Study 1 revealed that leaders of groups may be perceived as more dominant than their followers. In Study 2, participants were tasked with selecting the leaders from their groups and were more likely to (correctly) select targets perceived as more dominant but also (incorrectly) select targets perceived as more Trustworthy. In Study 3, we examined whether facial impressions were associated with downstream sentencing outcomes. Perceptions of Trustworthiness were associated with reduced sentencing, but dominance was unrelated. The results underscore the role that facial appearance plays in group formation and sentencing among youth.

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Person perception across group boundaries: a dynamic model of perception across race and gender lines

10.32920/ryerson.14660763 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sally Yan-Jun Xie

Keyword(s):

Face Perception ◽

Impression Formation ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Person Perception ◽

Two Dimensions ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Modeling Framework ◽

Race And Gender ◽

And Gender ◽

Trait Impressions

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Forming Impressions of Personality

Social Psychology ◽

10.1027/1864-9335/a000179 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 45 (3) ◽

pp. 153-163 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Sanne Nauts ◽

Oliver Langner ◽

Inge Huijsmans ◽

Roos Vonk ◽

Daniël H. J. Wigboldus

Keyword(s):

Impression Formation ◽

Context Dependent

Asch’s seminal research on “Forming Impressions of Personality” (1946) has widely been cited as providing evidence for a primacy-of-warmth effect, suggesting that warmth-related judgments have a stronger influence on impressions of personality than competence-related judgments (e.g., Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007 ; Wojciszke, 2005 ). Because this effect does not fit with Asch’s Gestalt-view on impression formation and does not readily follow from the data presented in his original paper, the goal of the present study was to critically examine and replicate the studies of Asch’s paper that are most relevant to the primacy-of-warmth effect. We found no evidence for a primacy-of-warmth effect. Instead, the role of warmth was highly context-dependent, and competence was at least as important in shaping impressions as warmth.

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The Gender Typicality of Faces and Its Impact on Visual Processing and on Hiring Decisions

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000217 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 60 (6) ◽

pp. 444-452 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Lisa von Stockhausen ◽

Sara Koeser ◽

Sabine Sczesny

Keyword(s):

Visual Processing ◽

Past Research ◽

Visual Exploration ◽

Facial Appearance ◽

Leadership Roles ◽

Hiring Decisions ◽

Leadership Selection ◽

Gender Typicality ◽

Second Stage ◽

The Feminine

Past research has shown that the gender typicality of applicants’ faces affects leadership selection irrespective of a candidate’s gender: A masculine facial appearance is congruent with masculine-typed leadership roles, thus masculine-looking applicants are hired more certainly than feminine-looking ones. In the present study, we extended this line of research by investigating hiring decisions for both masculine- and feminine-typed professional roles. Furthermore, we used eye tracking to examine the visual exploration of applicants’ portraits. Our results indicate that masculine-looking applicants were favored for the masculine-typed role (leader) and feminine-looking applicants for the feminine-typed role (team member). Eye movement patterns showed that information about gender category and facial appearance was integrated during first fixations of the portraits. Hiring decisions, however, were not based on this initial analysis, but occurred at a second stage, when the portrait was viewed in the context of considering the applicant for a specific job.

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