Don’t think you’d judge a book by it’s cover? Think again. Past research has shown that adults and children regularly use faces to make judgments about the character traits of others, even with only a brief glance.
Now new research supports the idea of facial bias aka face-ism- an extreme tendency to judge people based on their c.
Look at the two faces below created by researcher Lisa DeBruine. Would you hire these people? Who looks more intelligent? Would you trust either person?
In fact the images above are composite images, with each one having been created by combining four different faces. And even though these faces aren’t real, you may still have made a snap decision about each composite person’s competence based on their facial expression and structure.
Making quick judgments about how much we should trust someone, how dominant they are likely to be, or how intelligent they are can be useful estimates of personality. But this can also, unfortunately, lead to stereotyping – for example, thinking that people with a particular physical characteristic must all be untrustworthy.
Drastic Conclusions?
Recent research from Japan suggests something more worrying; that some of us have a disposition to draw drastic conclusions about the traits and personalities of others based solely on facial appearance.
In a series of online studies with 312 participants, Scientist Atsunobu Suzuki and colleagues asked participants to complete two rounds of surveys. The first was to assess the participants’ belief in established stereotypes, while the second was to analyze the extent to which participants made judgments on personality traits based on facial features.
They found what they call “face-based trait inferences” (FBTIs). Essentially face-based trait inferences are when subjects make a series of personality judgments having taken a brief look at someone’s face.
While everyone makes FBTIs to some degree, they discovered that some people only make extreme judgments (both positive and negative). This held even when the age, sex and ethnicity of participants were controlled for.
People with attractive faces tended to be judged as having desirable traits, like trustworthiness and competence, and more masculine-looking faces tended to be perceived as less trustworthy. Whether this tendency for facial bias was innate or learned was not determined.
Young Children Form First Impressions From Faces
Research also shows that just like adults, children as young as 3 tend to judge an individual’s character traits, such as trustworthiness and competence, simply by looking at the person’s face.
The research, led by psychological scientist Emily Cogsdill of Harvard University, shows that the predisposition to judge others based on physical features starts early in childhood and does not require years of social experience.
the researchers had 99 adults and 141 children (ages 3 to 10) evaluate pairs of computer-generated faces that differed on one of three traits: trustworthiness (i.e., mean/nice), dominance (i.e., strong/not strong), and competence (i.e., smart/not smart).
After being shown a pair of faces, participants might be asked, for example, to judge “which one of the people is very nice.”
As expected, the adults showed consensus on the traits they attributed to specific faces. And so did the children.
Children ages 3-4 were only slightly less consistent in their assessments than were 7-year-olds . But the older children’s judgments were in as much agreement as adults’, indicating a possible developmental trend.
Overall, children seemed to be most consistent in judging trustworthiness, compared to the other two traits. This suggests that children may tend to pay particular attention to the demeanor of a face – that is, whether it is broadly positive or negative.
Societal Implications
As you can imagine, having facial bias can have serious real-world implications when it comes to important decision making, like who to vote for or whether a suspect is guilty of a crime.
Research has shown that being made aware of your biases can lead to a change of mindset in the short term, but people need extra interventions periodically to make any real behavior change last.
“We believe that this finding is important because such individuals should be a prime target for intervention to reduce the biasing impact of facial appearance on interpersonal judgments and choices,” Suzuki said.
The post Do You Suffer From Facial Bias aka Face-ism? The Answer is Likely Yes. first appeared on Humintell.
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