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Article Excerpt
Judging attractiveness of human faces takes only a moment, and we also classify faces for broad and tangible qualities such as age and sex. Alongside these attributions we also examine more subtle social signals predicting the behaviour and personality of others, such as deciding whether we think someone is an extravert or an introvert, based on their appearance. Facial characteristics influence attributions of various personality characteristics and, because of their prominent and (in most cases) permanent display, can play an important role in social perception.
Many individuals believe the face provides important guides to character (Hassin & Trope, 2000, Liggett, 1974) and there are also studies showing that observers can make reliable and somewhat accurate judgments of others' personality traits on the basis of very little information. Several studies have examined accuracy of personality attributions and many utilize the five-factor model of personality (or the 'Big 5') proposed by Norman (1963). The factors are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and intellect-openness. Passini and Norman (1966) examined small groups of undergraduates who were placed in groups without verbal interaction for 15 minutes and asked to rate each other using scales corresponding to the Big 5 personality factors. They found that correlations between self and others' ratings were significantly greater than chance for extraversion, conscientiousness and openness.
Replicating this study, Albright, Kenny, and Malloy (1988) also found that when judges were asked to rate strangers they met in person without interaction on personality factors, there was a high degree of agreement between different judges on the personality characteristics attributed. The judgments were also significantly correlated with the targets' own self-ratings for extraversion and conscientiousness. Watson (1989) also found evidence for accuracy when judging extraversion and conscientiousness. This paradigm is referred to as 'zero acquaintance' and there are now many studies that reinforce the original findings (see Kenny, Albright, Malloy, & Kashy, 1994 for review). The phenomena of consensus and accuracy in personality attributions from faces have also been identified in cross-cultural studies. They can be found using photographs of still faces (Albright et al., 1988), video footage (Kenny, Horner, Kashy, & Chu, 1992), and also using acquaintances' judgments of targets' personality in comparison with the unfamiliar judges' estimations (Borkenau & Liebler, 1993). Among these studies there have sometimes been indications of sex differences in accuracy. For example, Ambady, Hallahan, and Rosenthal (1995) report that women are more accurate judges of strangers' personality than men.
Accuracy in rating has also been documented for traits not related to the Big 5. Berry and Brownlow (1989) found that unfamiliar judges' ratings of male babyfacedness (possession of infant-like facial traits) were positively correlated with the face owner's self-reported approachability and warmth, but negatively related to self-reported aggression. For female faces, babyishness was associated with low self-reported levels of physical power and assertiveness. Bond, Berry, and Omar (1994) have demonstrated that individuals with faces rated as having low honesty are more likely to volunteer for experiments that involve them deceiving others than people whose faces are judged to look more honest. There is also evidence that intelligence can be inferred from facial information (Zebrowitz, Hall, Murphy, & Rhodes, 2002) and that personality can also be manifested in the environments that people construct around themselves, in that judges can accurately infer some personality traits from brief viewing of targets' bedrooms and offices (Gosling, Ko, Mannarelli, & Morris, 2002).
The consistency in attributions must be due to certain visible characteristics in the perceived. Three likely candidates which have received much attention in stereotype research are masculinity, attractiveness and age. Males and females differ in facial form, and certain behavioural traits such as dominance-submissiveness are thought to be associated with one sex more than the other (it is essentially immaterial to the issue of consistency of attributions whether such stereotypes are actually accurate, although of course, this would be relevant to attribution accuracy). By extrapolation, observers may perceive the differences in the masculinity of faces within members of the same sex as relating to the dominance of the owner of that face (Perrett et al., 1998). As well as potential sex stereotypes, other general stereotypes also exist. For example, there exists a pervasive 'what is beautiful is good' stereotype (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972), in which varied positive personality attributions are projected on to those possessing attractive faces (Feingold, 1992). There also exists a 'baby-face' stereotype (Berry & McArthur, 1986) whereby individuals whose faces most resemble infants are seen as warmer, less likely to exhibit antisocial behaviour, more submissive, more naive and more irresponsible than those with more mature faces (Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992). This may reflect attribution based on similarity to a particular group, and since immaturity is associated with childhood, childlike faces are perceived as immature (Berry & McArthur, 1985). While baby-facedness may not be the same as perceived age, infant-like faces do appear younger than more mature-looking faces. Given their prominent role in social perception, any of these traits may provide cues to accurate personality attributions. Accuracy could potentially be mediated by self-fulfilling prophecies (Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977), the expressive habits of individuals (Malatesta, Fiore, & Messina, 1987), active manipulation, such as use of grooming aids (Cash, 1990), or putative links to biological mechanisms, such as those between face shape, personality and hormone levels (Enlow, 1982, Mazur & Booth, 1998).
In this study we created composite images of individuals who had rated themselves as high or low on each of the five-factor traits. We had the resulting images rated for the same traits so that we could assess accuracy and determine whether there were consistent facial cues to accurate personality attribution. Galton (1878) devised the basic technique of combining individual images to produce composites. Galton was also interested in how behaviour might be reflected in faces and he produced, among other images,...
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