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6
Facial Appearance and Personality
Judgements
Anna Rubesova, Department of Philosophy and History of Sciences, Faculty of
Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; Jan Havlicek, Department of
Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Introduction
The idea that the appearance of an individual represents his or her nature is very
common and has accompanied mankind at least since antiquity. The first written
evidence can be found in Physiognomies, a book ascribed to Aristotle (trans. 1963).
There, the character of a human is brought into line with the nature of the animals that the person physically resembles. Twenty centuries later, J ohann Kaspar
Lavater, an eighteenth-century theologist from Zurich, based his doctrine on these
ancient ideas (1844/2001). He stated that the ability to "read faces" is an intuitive
capability inherent to everyone, and it can be cultivated by proper training. The
bloom of physiognomy in the eighteenth century also brought along related disciplines, such as the phrenology of Franz Joseph Gall, one of the most honoured
neuroanatomists of his era (Tomlinson, 2005). Phrenology stems from comparative
neuroanatomy and from the study of heads of a large number of different people.
Later, Cesare Lombroso (1911) formulated his anthropology of the criminal and
the genius. "Inborn criminals" possess- according to Lombroso- a number of atavistic physical and psychological traits. His conclusions led to the establishment of a
suspended sentence for people who committed a crime under someone's influence
but in fact were not "inborn criminals". Although Gall 's physiognomy, phrenology
and related disciplines were highly popular among scientists as well as lay people,
the proposals about direct connections between the shape of a particular morphological trait (e.g., ear or nose) and one's psychological character were erroneous.
Misuse of these practices, such as by the above-mentioned forensic anthropology,
actually discredited research in this field for a long time. Thus, at least until the
1970s, the idea that physical appearance and psychological traits might be intercorrelated- due to shared developmental factors and/ or gene expression- was taboo
in the psychological sciences.
At the present time, sayings such as "to lose/save face", "the face (eye) is the
window to the soul" and so on refer to the closeness of the relationship between
one's appearance and personality. People do widely believe that the character of a
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11 4
Social Psychological Dynamics
person can be recognized from hi s or he r face, as two surveys have shown (Hassin &
Trope, 2000; Liggett, 1974). For example, in Hong Kong, the majority of responde n ts stated that some specific pe rsona lity traits ca n be deduced merely from tee th
morphology (e.g. , accordin g to traditional Chin ese physiognomy, which is still popular among the Chinese, sharp teeth refer to a talkative pe rsonality) (McGrath, Liu,
& Lam, 2002).
Cognitive Processes in Personality Attributions
Separati ng knowledge into catego ries of various kinds (e.g., a dog belongs to the
category of an im als) is part of our basic cogn itive processes (Devine, 1989). Building
these categories is a complex process that develops from ea rly infancy. Howeve r, it
develops according to a relatively ri gid system, and the process of categorization
becomes to some exte nt a utom atic. Of course, this applies equally to judgements
about other people, a nd it ca n be a highly effective way to acquire basic knowledge , for instance whe n mee ting a stranger (Macrae & Bodenhause n, 2000) . In
fact, without such "shortcuts", we wou ld spe nd a lot of tim e a nd e ne rgy in careful
investigation of eve ry detail, which may bring us to ma ny of the same conclusions.
Ca tegorization of people (i. e., ascribing traits typical for a group of people to particular individuals) might be explained as a conseque nce of a strong evolutionary
pressure to recognize specific groups of people such as females and males, healthy
and unhealthy, babies and adults, relatives a nd strange rs or the diffe re nt e motional
states of people (Ramsey, Lan glois, Hoss, Rube nstein, & Griffin, 2004).
The cognitive te nde ncy to integrate new expe rie nces (e.g., e ncounters with a
stranger) into preestablished me ntal categories might also lead to erroneous conclusions by including individuals who rese mble a membe r of a particular category in
te rms of some traits but not othe rs. This effect is usually labelled ovngen.emlization.
A strong sensitivity to some traits, such as those th at signal children's helplessness
(Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992) , may lead to an overgeneralization to people with
physical traits similar to the primary group (Zebrowitz & Collins, 1997) . Thus, strong
predispositions that "navigate" us to behave as naive a nd physically weak individuals
towa rds children and babies also make us behave similarly towards adults whose facial
traits resemble babies' faces (Ze browitz & Montepare, 1992) . The same mechanism
is applied whe n attributing typically "feminine" characteristics (e.g., warmth, a caring nature) to males with fe minin e facial traits (Pe rre tt e t al. , 1998) and wh en attributing highe r intelligence to highly attractive people (Zebrowitz & Rhodes, 2004) . By
means of overgeneralization, it is also possible to ascribe particular personality traits
to people whose faces look like they are expressin g some emotional state (even when
they are posing ne utrally) (Montepa re & Dobish , 2003). The ste reotyped deduction
of pe rsonality charac te ristics from outer traits (appearance, be haviour, clothes, e tc. )
is called the halo effect. For example , the attractjve ness halo effect refers to a situation
in which more attractjve people are ascribed more positive traits (Langlois e t al. ,
2000). The halo effect is also manifest wh e n judging more masculine people to be
more aggressive and dominant (Swaddle & Reie rson, 2002).
All of the above-me ntioned phe nomena (ca tegorization of people, ove rgene ralization and the halo effec t) refe r to specific ways of infe rring conclusions conce rning
Facial Appeara nce a nd Personality J udgeme n ts
11 5
o ther people's personalities based on a limited amount of in formation (such as
appearance), not to the in accuracy of th ese judgeme nts. The ques tion of the relevan ce ofsuchjudgements is much more complex and will be discussed later.
Sources of Expectations
The sponta neous te nde ncy to deduce people's personali ty traits according to their
appearance led researchers to formulate hypotheses about the origins of such phenome na. Although specific hypotheses are often seen in sharp contrast, they are
not mutually exclusive, and various processes might work in concert. The d egree to
which these processes induce the effec t might vary according to the attribution and
the social context.
Possible ways in which conscious and un conscious expectations arise regarding
the link be tween appearance and pe rsonality can be divided theoretically into three
groups. First, reactions to a specific appearance can be due to ge ne tk predispositions. In this context, we are referring to th e te ndency of the individuals making up
a specific group (e.g., species or one sex of a species) to fee l and behave in a specific
way rathe r than in response to e nvironm e ntal conditions. However, this does not
exclude the role of learning. For instance, several studies have shown that the a ttitudes of newborn infants a nd young childre n towards people based on their faci al
appearances are congru ent with judgements made by adults (Langlois et al., 2000).
It is thought tha t gene tic predispositions have a strong effec t on reactions to attractive faces and to the baby schema (i. e., baby-face features) . The te ndency to prefe r
attractive people as mates (Feingold , 1992) and the te nde ncy to care for babies
(McCabe, 1984) we re both fundamental aspects of the lives of our evolutionary
ancestors. Such biases in cognitive processes a re expec ted to be gen etically based
and have an adaptive value (i.e. , individuals who had shown behaviour based on
such bi ased processes passed a higher proportion of their genes to the next generation). The gene tic predisposition theory is supported by relatively low variability in
reactions to diffe ren t types of appearance, both cross-culturally and within a socie ty
(Cunningham, Robe rts, Ba rbee, Drue n, & Wu, 1995). Howeve r, it is important to
note tha t the fact th at be haviour may have evolved as an evolutionary adapta tion
does not imply that th at be haviour has any particular social value (i.e ., we should
avoid the n aturalistic fallacy). Inte rpre ting th e evolutionary advantages of certain
behaviours does not say a nything about the e thical aspec ts of such behaviour. It
does not justify preferential treatment of people who possess traits unde rstood to
be adaptjve (nor does it justify "positive discrimination" of less lucky individu als).
Moreover, we should not neglec t the probabilistic nature of scie ntific findings and
limit their application to individual cases.
The growing amount of evide nce that refe rs to th e relatively high accuracy in personality judgements- based on a limited amount of information that is represe nted
by facial traits - led to the formulation of the kernel of tTu.th h):pothesis. Th is hypothesis
states that facial traits offer some relevant information regarding a give n individu al's
pe rsonality (Berry & Finch We ro , 1993). According to the kernel of truth hypothesis, we share some expec tations because they are partially accurate. Th is hypothesis
represe n ts an ecological approach, and it emphasizes the evolutionary adva n tages
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Social Psychological Dynamics
of perceiving specific facial traits as clues leading to personality, behaviour or other
characteristics. These perceptions may be adaptive. Such behaviour can lead to nurturing helpless children and preferences for attractive mates.
Second, expectations can be based on shared experiences of a particular cultural
or social group. It is thought, for instance, that the media in conte mporary Western
cultures have significantly influe nced public opinion and, to a great extent, preserved the stereotype about links be tween personality and appearance . Heroes are
rarely ugly (unless their character is warped), hardworking students wear glasses,
blondes are unintelligent and so forth. Moreover, in advertisements, an actor not
only has to be attractive but also possess the right kind of attractiveness to promote
a particular product (Solomon, Ashmore, & Longo, 1992). Thus, advertisements
directly create associa tions between a certain appearance and a certain lifestyle.
Shared experience also may be represented by shared values, such as the personal
characteristics d esirable in a particular society. As a result, in spite of the ubiquity
of the attractiveness halo effect, the desirable characteristics attributed to attractive
people may vary cross-culturally. For example, the Chinese consider attractive people to be more intelligent, whereas Americans attribute higher sociability to attractive people (Zebrowitz, 1997). Metaphors and phrases may be another source of
shared experience. Expressions such as wide-eyed or crooked refe r both to appearance
and personality (Zebrowitz, Vionescu, & Collins, 1996). Classical physiognomy in
ancient Greece- and late r in the seventeenth century- widely employed analogies
with animals for "reading faces". In current Western society, some analogies that
originated in ancient history are still maintained. The influence of shared expectations is refe rred to by the cultural stereotype hypothesis, which states that all the
expected relationships be tween appearance and anticipated pe rsonality are caused
by shared cultural stereotypes. Although this hypothesis might clarify the development of shared expectations and differences in values and related stereotypes
among communities, it neither adequately explains the origin of the frequently
found cross-cultural consensus in relationships between appearance and ascribed
pe rsonality (McArthur & Berry, 1987) nor does it explain the agreement between
judgements made by adults and children with more limited experience of cultural
values (Keating & Bai, 1986).
Third, we also form our expectations according to our personal experiences. Our
experience with other people makes us "transfer" their characteristics to similarlooking individuals. For instance, for a job requiring a warm and friendly pe rsonality, a candidate is often chosen who resembles a previously met friendly individual
(Lewicki, 1985). Our personal expe riences also consist of knowledge of our own or
our relatives' physical traits (see the section Physical Resemblance for more). We find
individuals with facial traits similar to our own to be more attractive and trustworthy than more physically dissimilar individuals (DeBruine, 2002). People also react
more positively to the face of an unknown individual if they have seen him or her
previously (even if only very briefly), and this tendency has also been recorded in
newborns (Walton & Bower, 1993). Our experience with certain face types can lead
to preferential bias. Brief exposure to atypical faces (digitally manipulated ) leads to
a shift in raters' preferences such that they later consider these faces to be more normal and more attractive than the original faces (Rhodes, J efferry, Watson, Clifford,
& Nakayama, 2003).
Facial Appearance and Personali ty Judgeme nts
117
Development of the Relationships Between Appearance and Personality
Th e rel~tionship between physical ~ppea rance and certain personality traits might
have vanous roots. To reveal the mam causes of such correlations, one should focus
on the ontogenetic development of personality and appearance. The most complex
model was proposed. by Leslie A. Zebrowitz's Model of Appearance-Trait Relationship
( 1997) . As we find tillS model lucid and inspiring, we shortly review the main causal
relationships.
The relationship between appearance and personality traits is caused by a shared biological fa ctor. This includes biological factors that influence the developmen t of both
n:orphol~gical :eatures and psychological traits. The main cause would be genes
w1th a pleiOtropic effect and hormones. For example, testosterone is related both to
the development of masculine facial traits and to higher dominance and aggression
(Mazur & Booth, 1998). An extreme example is presented by the trisomy of chromosome 21 (Down's syndrome), which causes both lower intellectual capacity and
a distinct physical appearance.
The relationship between appearance and personality traits is caused by an environmental
fa ctor. ~h a~·i?g similar ~nvironments might cause parallel ch anges in various aspects
of the mdividu~ls .. For mstance, people in long-term relationships such as marriage
become more Similar to each other, botl1 psychologically and physically (Little, Burt,
&: Perrett, 2~06a), although other studies have found that the similarity in marn ed couples IS caused by choosing self-resembling partners (e.g., Griffiths & Kunz,
1973 ). This similarity is also perceptible to indepe ndent judges, as d escribed in a
study by Little and colleagues (2006a). On the basis of a facial picture, four out of
five personality traits were attributed more equally to more long-standing partners
compare~ ~ith pa1~tn ers .in shorter relationships (Little e t al., 2006a). The development of Similar faCial traits may also be induced by the repeated imitation of mimic
expressions of the partne r, which can lead to similar configurations of wrinkles and
oth~r facial structures. (Malate~ta, Fiore , & Messina, 1987). Another example of an
env1r~n~ental f~ctor mfluencmg both appearance and personality may be membership 111 a speCific group that encourages a distinct look, such as hairstyle or dress.
Differences in personality cause differences in fa cial ajJpearance. As me ntioned above,
some personality traits might be manifest by changes in facial tissues, for instance by
~epeated mimic expressions. This idea was expressed by George Orwell, stating that
at fifty everyone has the face he deserves" (Knowles, 2004). This aphorism is also
suppo~te~ .by em~irical res~arch. It was found that a neutral expression made by
older mdlVlduals 1s often mistaken for an expression that is linked to the emotions
the ind.ividual has been experiencing most regularly. So, the neutral expression of
an anxwus person was often mistaken for an expression of sadness (Mala testa et
~1. , 1987) . Besides the congruent relationship between appearance and personalIty, people may also change in appearance in a way that is incongruent with their
personality. People are able to employ fine mimic changes, which in fact are still
perceived as n eutral expressions, to convey the impression of greater dominance
(Keating & Bai, 1986). If such slight expressions are repeated often, it may lead to
permanent changes in facial tissues.
Differences in fa cial appeamnce cause differences in personality. Facial appearance
might influence the social environment of an individual, which could consequently
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Social Psychological Dynami cs
mould his or he r personality in some way. For exa mple, if attractive peopl e are
pe rceived as more sociable , th e n other people may treat th e m as such (i. e., th ey
may approach them more openly, invite the m to parties , e tc.), regardless of the
actual level of their sociability. This could lead to the deve lopment of higher sociability in attractive people co mpared with less attractive peo ple . The developme nt
of a congruent relationship be tween personality and appearance, mediated by
the social environment, is call ed the self-fulfilling jJ'IojJhecy effect (M e rton , 1968) .
The opposite phe nomenon, the self-defeating jJ'IojJhecy effect, reflects the developme nt of an incongrue nt re lationship betwee n personality and appearance. For
instance, p eople who are pe rce ived as honest a nd trustworthy may reali ze that
their deceptions remain uncovered, which can lead to the development of highe r
deceitfulness and co nfound others' expectations (Bond, Be rry, & Omar, 1994) .
Self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecy effects cause changes in self-concept,
resulting in changes in personality. Both phenomena occur only when the following conditions are satisfied: ( 1) there is common agreement on the personality
of th e judged pe rson, (2) the perce ption lasts for a sufficiently long time and (3)
the judged person is sensitive to the expectations of others and responds to it with
either congruent or incongru e nt behaviour and by changes that could be incorporated into the self-concept.
Methodological Aspects
This chapter deals with specific aspects of research on personality trait attribution
according to face. We believe that the methods used may significantly impact upon
the results obtained; therefore, we will review the main advantages and disadvantages of the most commonly employed approaches. Understanding the details of
th e chosen metl1ods allows us to draw relevant conclusions about the general validity of tl1e findings in everyday life.
In general, two m.a in approaches can be identified: to control experimental
conditions as much as possible or to maintain natural conditions as much as possible (by observing naturally occmring situatjons). The main advantage of the
first approach is the possibility of testing the effects of individual variables, such
as hairstyle. However, such designs are often carried out under laboratory conditions and their relevance to everyday situations might be questionable. The main
advantage of the second approach is its high ecological validity (i.e., its generalizability to real-life situations). On the other hand , this design entails the problem
of many uncontrolled factors, and it is difficult to judge which of them have an
impact on the phe nomenon under investigation. Some studies, for instance, have
the judge and target meet together with limited opportunities to communicate, at
least verbally (Watson, 1989). In such cases, these two participants could certainly
communicate nonverbally, and the judge might use other naturally occurring cues
apart from facial appearance to make his or her judgeme nt, including cues that
cannot be controlled by the researchers. The following factors have been shown to
influe nce the attribution of perso nality traits: grooming (Ke nny, Horner, Kashy, &
Facial Appearance and Pe rsonality Judgem e nts
119
Chu , 1992; Law Smith e ta!., 2006), hairstyle (Mes ko & Bereczkei, 2004; Muscarella
& Cunningham, 1996; Wogalte r & Hosie , 1990), style of facia l hair (Muscarella &
Cunningham, 1996; Wogalter & Hosie, 1990) and facial expressivity (Cunningham,
Barbee, & Pike, 1990; Keating & Bai, 1986; Kenny e t al., 1992).
These studies enable us to draw relatively relevant conclusions regarding th e common level of agreement among judges and th e common level of accuracy in those
judgeme nts. We can conclude that the research always wavers between a more natural and a more controlled research design. We believe that, for the best understanding of the phenomena under investiga tion, combining both resea rch designs is of
high value.
Composition of the sample size is also an important issue. In psychological
research, represe ntative samples are hardly ever obtained. Particularly in the
research on personality judgements, in which socially shared ideas that vary across
communities may contribute to personality attributions, generalization of findings
should be carried out cautiously. It is also necessary to note that the vast majority
of research on personality attributions has been carried out within Euro-American
cultural settings, and it is therefore a matter of de bate whe ther such findings can be
directly applied to other cultures as well. The individuals who decide to participate
in research studies might in some respect be systematically diffe re nt from the general population. We can expect these people to be more compliant, more willing to
follow instructions, perhaps more ex traverted and curious and less suspicious. Thus,
we will rarely be able to achieve a sample covering the whole variability in personality dimensions because more withdrawn, reluctant or rebellious people would probably not agree to participate in studies.
The experimental design chosen may also lead to biased findings (or to biased
interpretations of the findings) in two opposing ways. First, it may lead to findings
which in fact have no "clinical relevance"; in other words, their real-life impact
is ve ry low. For example, using facial pictures of people with extreme facial traits
on ly (e.g., extremely attractive versus extremely unattractive, or extremely babyfaced versus extremely adult-faced individuals) in a study of personality attribution
does not tell us much about assessing personality according to faces within the
general population. Second, th e research design may lead to an underestimation
of commonly appearing phenomena. For example, the ability to judge personality in a relevant way may be higher in real life than in expe rime ntal conditions
where we usually substitute naturally occurring cues (e.g., nonverbal behaviour,
general appearance) by more controlled ones (e.g., personality descriptions, facial
pictures).
The research on personality attributions in general has two main aims: to estimate
tl1 e consensus among judges that indicates shared ideas and to estimate the accuracy of the judgeme nts. It is important to note that eve n a high level of consensus
among judges does not necessarily imply judgeme nt accuracy. Accuracy in this context means high agreement between th e subjectivejudg·ement made by the rater and
the pe rsonality assessment of the target person. Personality assessment can be based
on (a) a personality test (Shevlin , Walker, Davies, Banyard, & Lewis, 2003), (b) selfassessme nt (Ke nny eta!., 1992), (c) a personality judgement made by a person well
acquainted with the target person (Rind & Gaudet, 1993) or (d) a video recording
of the target. person's be haviour (Masip & Garrido, 2001). The most widely used
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Social Psychological Dynamics
method of personality assessment is represented by a range of standardized personality tests that allow for a relatively simple comparison of different studies. At present,
the most popular personali ty test is based on the Five Factor Personality Model (the
most recent version of the inventory is called NEO-PI-R) with five basic dimensions neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness - and six
facets loading each dimension (Costa & McCrae, 1992b) . Of course, one should be
aware of the limitations of various personality assessment tools. A low level of accuracy in personality judgements might perhaps not stem from an erroneous stereotype
of rating individuals but rather from an inadequate tool for personality assessment.
However, a detailed analysis of the limitations in this field is beyond the scope of this
chapte1: For details, see Groth-Marnat, 2003, for instance.
The judging person usually makes his or her judgement on the basis of a restricted
amount of information about the target person, often merely according to his or her
facial picture (Shevlin et al., 2003). For this type of experimental design, the term
zero acquaintance was established. Thus, all judgements arise from the evaluation
of superficial traits (Albright, Kenny, & Malloy, 1988). The information available
to the raters is highly restricted and represented either by a cropped facial photograph so that the hairstyle and clothing cannot be seen (Shevlin e t al., 2003) or,
more commonly, by using composite images (Penton-Voak, Pound, Little, & Perrett,
2006). Composites are made of several individual facial photographs by averaging
their shape and texture. Currently, the software for creating composite pictures is
widely used in evolutionary psychology research. In fact, creating an "average face"
from many faces is not a new idea- Francis Galton was the first to make composite pictures manually; similarly to contemporary researchers, he believed that the
resultant picture could capture the typical morphological characteristics and the
psychological traits of the people in the photographs (Galton, 1879).
Accuracy in Judgements
We assume that a possible function of attributing personality traits according to
someone's appearance is to gauge the person's future behaviour. Different personality traits are judged with different levels of accuracy. (By accuracy we mean
the level of congruence of the judgement with a measure of personality, e.g. selfassessment by use of a personality inventory.) We can expect that people would be
most accurate in judging those traits that are more important for them; in other
words, people are motivated to judge some traits correctly, whereas other traits
may be less important. For example, sociosexuality in women (i.e., the willingness to engage in casual sexual relationships) is more accurately judged by men
than by other women (Gangestad, Simpson, DiGeronimo, & Biek, 1992). On the
other hand, Kenny formulated a hypothesis suggesting that people would find it
easier to judge the personalities of those who have more extre me personality traits
(Kenny, 1993). However, this idea- as far as we know - has not bee n systematically
tested. In the following pages, we will discuss the most commonly studied traits in
more detail.
Facial Appearance and Personality Judgements
121
Extraversion
Not surprisingly, it is easier to carry out an accurate estimation of the personality
of an open, coherently and logically behaving individual than the personality of an
~npredictable or withdrawn one (Colvin, 1993). This can be the reason why judgmg the extraversion of an unknown individual is relatively easy. Moreover, ex travel'"
sion correlates witl1 many observable cues, both in behaviour and in appearance,
such as quick movements, a fashionable hairstyle, a friendly expression and so on
(Borkenau & Lieber, 1992). Consequently, a whole range of cues referring to the
level of extraversion of an unknown individual is usually available to tl1e raters.
Extraversion is the easiest trait to judge (in comparison to other Big Five factors) in
studies em~loying facial pictures (Pe nton-Voak et al., 2006), in studies employing
actual meetmgs between rater and target (Albright et al., 1988; Watson, 1989), when
judgements are made from videos of the target person (Borkenau & Lieber, 1992;
Kenny et al., 1992) or on the basis of e-mail correspondence (Gill, Oberlande 1~ &
Austin, 2006). A number of studies suggest that high extraversion is attributed to
more attractive people and that these judgements are to some extent correct.
High accuracy in judging extraversion was found by recent studies employing composite pictures (Little & Perrett, 2007; Penton-Voak et al., 2006). The authors found
that faces of people similar in some personality characteristics contain shared traits,
which are used by raters as cues when judging personality characteristics. Apart
from extraversion, the character traits of agreeableness and, to some extent, emotional stability (Penton-Voak et al., 2006) and conscientiousness (Little & Perrett,
2007) were also judged correctly from composite pictures made from faces of people who scored high or low in these traits. Rubesova and colleagues (unpublished
manuscript) further found accuracy in judgements of several personality characteristics that load on extraversion, such as warmth, dominance, liveliness and social
boldness. Rind and Gaudet (1993) stated that the participants in tl1eir study were
able to provide correct assessments of the level of social adjustment from the facial
photographs of adolescent boys. The description of social adjustment is related to
the description of Big Five extraversion (Piedmont, 1998). The "true" personality of the judged boys was described by their camp leader. The autl10rs found a
~trong correlation between the camp leader's characterization of the boys and the
JUdgements made by unknown individuals on the basis of the boys' facial pictures.
However, whether tl1e study really measured accuracy of judgements depends on
how well the camp leader actually knew the boys. If he only knew them superficially,
the consensus would rather refer to consensus among independent judges, rather
than to accuracy in judgements.
On the other hand, Shevlin and colleagues concluded that respondents were not
able to judge the extraversion of unknown people correctly on the basis of a facial
image (Shevlin et al., 2003). There are several possible explanations for such a finding. First, unlike the commonly used Five Factor Model of personality, the authors
used Eysenck's personality questionnaire to assess the personality profiles of the
target individuals. The Big Five questionnaire might be a more appropriate tool
for this kind of research. Second, as the raters judged each picture on all three
Eysenck's factors (extraversion, psychoticism and neuroticism), attractiveness and
babyfacedness in a row, the judgements could be biased by "attribution clustering"
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Social Psychological Dynamics
(i.e., transfe r) . For instance , an individual whose face the rate rs fo und baby-like
might also be judged as hig hly extrave rt and low o n psychoticism . T he same shortcoming is prese nt in som e other studies as well a nd might be caused by the effort of
the researchers to obtain maximum data in minimum time.
Conscientiousness
With respect to other Big Five factors - agreeabl eness, ne uroticism, openness and
conscientiousness - there is some evide nce that conscientiousness is judged, to
some extent, correctly in zero acquaintance studies (Borke nau & Lieber, 1992 ).
Similar to judgements of extrave rsion , conscie ntiousness is judged accurately whe n
meeting an unknown individual (Albright et al. , 1988; Watson, 1989) on the basis of
short video recordings of the target person (Borkenau & Lieber, 1992) and, to some
extent, on th e basis of facial pictmes (Shevlin e t al., 2003) . Shevlin and colleagues
concluded that people are able to estim ate the level ofEysenck's psychoticism in the
faces of unknown individuals. Since Eyse nck's psychoticism correlates sign ificantly
negatively with the Big Five facto r conscientiousness (Cos ta & McCrae, 1992a ), this
finding indicates some accuracy in conscientiousness judge me nts. Presentation of
both profiles together with the frontal photograph resulted in increased judgem ent
accuracy. Thus, the raters probably used some profile facial traits when judging
psychoticism. Unfortunately, the physical traits of the targe t persons were not m easured and, thus, we do not know which fa cial traits the rate rs used as a cue to judge
psychoticism. In studies e mploying ac tual m eetings be twee n the rate r and the targe t
pe rson, th e level of attributed conscientiousness usually correlates significantly with
the cleanliness and neatn ess of the target pe rson's clothes (Albright e t al., 1988;
Watson, 1989).
Warmth and Power
The face probably contains some cues that indicate the leve l of warmth and powe r
of the individual, and several lines of evide nce show that the impression of warmth
and powe r is predominantly caused by the degree of the target's babyfacedness.
Men's faces with large eyes, high eyebrows and a small chin (i .e. , traits typical for
the baby-schema) are judged as wa rmer, more naive , more trustworthy and kinder
than other me n's (Berry & McArthm, 1985). Further, males and fe males of diffe rent
ages (from five months to fifty-fom years) with large eyes, thin eyebrows, a round
face and a small nose bridge are pe rceived as more warm, naive , physically weak
and less socially autonomous (Ze browitz & Montepare, 1992) . Both above-mentioned studies focused on th e shared beliefs of the judges and not on the d egree
of judgeme nt accuracy. Accmacy of attributions was studied by Diane Berry ( 1991)
by comparing the level of warmth and powe r judged according to facial pictures
and self-assessed or questionnaire-based es timates of these traits. Besides personality traits, independe nt judges also evalua ted the attractive ness and babyface dness
of the faces. Again, in both sexes, babyfacedness corre lated significantly negatively
with attributed power and significan tly positively with attributed warmth. Attractive
individuals were see n as both warm and powerful. In both sexes, self-assessed power
Facial Appearance and Personality J udge me nts
123
correlated with attributed power, and in males th e same was also true for warmth .
Thus, not on ly are babyfaced individuals seen as warmer and less powe rful by others, but th ey also perceive themselves in th e same way. T he congrue nce between
self-assessme nt, personality tes t and judgeme nts by others may be caused by the
self-fulfilling prophecy effect (see above ). Indeed, detecting othe rs' expectations of
low power in babyfacecl individuals may lead to changes in their be haviour; in other
words, the person becomes less powerful because o the r people expec t it.
Trustwo rthiness and Honesty
Searching for connections between trustworthiness or ho nesty and physical traits
traditionally belonged to the popular inte rests of physiognomists. For instance,
Lornbroso's "anthropology of the criminal" ( 1911) stated that specific "atavistic"
physical traits indicate an innate te nde ncy to criminality. The appropriate estimation of an unknown individual's trustworthiness is, certainly, an important ability.
T he importance of such an ability is supported by the fact that people remember
the face of a putative dece ive r be tter (Chi appe & Brown, 2004; Mealey, Daood, &
Krage, 1996) . However, if certain physical traits we re unequivocally connected with
trustworthiness and people were sensitive to such cues, d eceitful be haviour would
not be profitable since the deceiver would be recognized at first sight. Our eve ryclay life exp erie nce sugges ts tha t this is not the case. Moreover, if a person were
pe rceived as trustworthy and hones t by others, deceitful behaviour would become
highly profitable for him or he r. Thus, the pe rson could develop the exact opposite behaviom, in contrast to the expecta tions of others (probably by m eans of the
self-defeating prophecy effect). Most published studies have found a relatively high
conse nsus among judges regarding the physical traits of a deceitful individual (e.g. ,
Be rry, 1991) . People who are attractive, babyfacecl or more symmetric are judged to
be less deceitful and more honest (Bond et: al., 1994; Zebrowitz et al., 1996). A study
focusin g on pe rce ived and real honesty across the life span concluded that women
who were less honest in childhood looked more honest in adulthood. Thus, these
wome n evolved the type of appearance that co ntradicted their former personality types, which is refe rred to as the artifice effect (Zebrowitz, 1997; Zebrowitz e t al.,
1996) . In males , the situation was far more perspicuous; males who looked more
honest in childhood we re in fact more honest: in adulthood (Zebrowitz eta!. , 1996) .
This phenome non can be explained by th e self-fulfilling prophecy effec t. The congruence be twee n appearance and pe rsonality was also found in a study investigating
th e accuracy of judgements of the tendency to be have dece itfully. The judges correctly estimated lower trustworthiness from the faces of students who we re willing to
participate in experiments that required the m to deceive others (Bond et al., 1994) .
However, replication of the study on a sample of Spanish students led to opposite
results (Masip & Garrido, 2001). Surprisingly, the study did not find any correlation
betwee n attractiveness or masculinity and trustworthiness or honesty. T he rate rs
we re told before the expe riment started about the diffe re nces be tween a baby's face
and an adult's face, which seems unnecessary because this differe nce is recognized
even by small ch ildren (Zebrowitz, 1997). It is h ard to tell whe the r the researcher's motivation to provide these instructions was clue to the fact that judges were
124
Social Psychological Dynamics
criminology students rathe r than psychology students. Perhaps the whole process
can be described as an "anns race", with constant efforts to improve our abilities in
unmasking deceivers while simultaneously preserving and even refining our ability
to mask our own deceptions.
Intelligence
Another popular, although somewhat controversial, issue is the effort to identify
physical traits that indicate the level of intelligence. Michat>l C.nnninn:h"m in <1 1qR6
study, measured a number of physical traits in the facial photographs of female
students and of Miss Universe contestants. He found that male judges considered
women with larger eyes, a smaller nose, greater chee kbone width and a wider smile
to be more intelligent than women without these features. These physical traits
also correlated strongly with the attractiveness of the women - again, we can say
that perception of intelligence was affected by the halo effect of attractiveness.
Kanazawa and Kovar (2004) proposed an evolutionary hypothesis that explains
the correlation between attractiveness and intelligence. The hypothesis is based on
three assumptions: (1) men with higher intelligence achieve higher ranks, (2) men
in higher ranks have more attractive sexual partners and (3) both attractiveness
and intelligence are heritable. Although the model seems persuasive, we are rather
sceptical about the tight bond between attractiveness and intelligence, as indicated
by the mixed results of several empirical studies. For example, a meta-analysis of
thirty studies concluded that men's attractiveness correlated negatively with intelligence (Feingold, 1992). More socially oriented researchers would explain the
link between attractiveness and intelligence by the self-fulfilling prophecy effect.
Attractive people may achieve higher mental performance because of others' expectations, mainly in childhood. This assumption has been supported by research on
school children and teachers. The teachers considered more attractive children
to be more intelligent (Clifford & Walster, 1973), which may consequently lead to
improved performance by those children (Feingold, 1992), possibly resulting from
the teacher's willingness to devote his or her time to "talented" children or from a
higher appreciation of those children's achievements. Moreover, less attractive children look older than their peers, so other people may expect unrealistic achievements from them (McCabe, 1984).
Again, other published studies agree that judgements of intelligence can be somewhat accurate. According to a recently published study, people are able to estimate
IQ in children and adolescents according to facial appearance (Zebrowitz, Hall,
Murphy, & Rhodes, 2002). The study was performed using a large sample of facial
photographs of people born during the 1920s and 1930s. IQ and socioeconomic
status had been recorded for the target individuals at diffe rent ages. In agreement
with the halo effect of attractiveness, the raters attributed higher intelligence to
more attractive individuals. Measured IQ indeed correlated positively with attractiveness in almost all age groups. Attributed intelligence further correlated with
facial symmeu·y and "averageness", both of which are important aspects of attractiveness. However, the relationship between attractiveness and IQ could be mediated
by higher socioeconomic status, which correlated both with attractiveness and IQ.
Facial Appearance and Pe rsonality Judgements
125
Therefore , we cannot say that IQ is directly related to attractive ness. The authors
later revised the data and concluded that intelligence was estimated correctly only
in below-average attractive target individuals (Zebrowitz & Rhodes, 2004). Some
abnormal facial traits may in fact indicate lowered intelligence. However, the judges
used attractiveness as a cue of intelligence in the whole sample of photographs by a
process of overgeneralization (see above for details). The tendency to judge intelligence according to attractiveness probably evolved from an evolutionary pressure to
recognize individuals with "bad genes" (i.e., poor health or undesirable personality)
from their appearance.
Factors Interacting with Personality Attributions
Sex Differences
Several studies have concluded that personality is more easily judged in male faces
than in female faces (Berry, 1991; Penton-Voak et al., 2006). As far as we know, no
hypothesis explaining this fact has been proposed yet. Although it is highly specula tive, we suggest that in our ancestral conditions, unambiguous communication
within hierarchies might have been of higher importance for males. For example,
it would increase the effectiveness of cooperation and clearly indicate the relative
status of the males. On the other hand, females could profit from deceiving others
if they could thereby increase the resources that others have invested in them and
their offspring.
A second possible explanation is based on the assumption that it is easier to
judge faces with more extreme physical traits than faces with more average traits.
Testosterone promotes the growth of typical masculine facial traits such as an
angular jaw and protruding supraorbital arches (Tanner, Ulijaszek, Johnston, &
Preece, 1998) . Women, on the other hand, might be selected to have more average
facial physical traits, as averageness is an important aspect of female attractiveness
(Rhodes, Sumich, & Byatt, 1999). Moreover, females may prefer more feminine or
masculine males, depending on each woman's individual strategy and arising from
their own attractiveness, for example (Little, Burt, Penton-Voak, & Perrett, 2001).
Males could therefore be sexually selected to be either more feminine or more masculine, resulting in higher variability of their facial traits. On the other hand, males
strongly prefer feminine females over masculine females, resulting in lower variability in female facial traits (Johnston, Hagel, Franklin, Fink, & Grammet~ 2001).
It is also possible that the relative ease of judging male faces could be restricted
to female judges. That is, women may be "tuned" to perceive male personalities
according to their face, especially in the context of partner choice. Gender differences in partner preferences are well established (Mealey, 2000). Men value physical attractiveness highly, whe reas women value characteristics that are less apparent
in a man's appearance (e.g., cues of high status and a willingness to invest resources
and protec t the woman and h er children; for details, see Buss, 1999). Thus, the
relevant estimation of personality traits according to appearance could be more
important in a woman's partner choice than in a man's partner choice.
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Social Psychological Dynamics
Attractiveness
Attribution of personality traits according to facial appearance is, to a gre~t ~x te n~,
influenced by the attractiveness of a face. In co ngrue nce wit~1.the Platom: Ide n.tlfication of beauty and goodness, we te nd to asc ribe more positive pe rs.onahty traits
to more attractive individuals (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972; Keaung & Doyle,
2002). This phenomenon is not restricted to social perception bu.t is much broader.
For example, people find more attractive autom ated teller machmes (ATMs) more
useful (Tractinski, Katz, & Ika r, 2000). In fact, the a ttrac tive ness of an ATM was a
stronge r predictor of perceived usefuln ess than the act~~al sp~ed and. acc~uacy o:
its response to the consumer's requests. T he stereotype what IS beauuful IS good
works eve n if we do not focus directly on the human face. Van Leeuwen and Macrae
(2004) conducted an expe riment in which respondents were instructed to mark
a set of words (e.g., jJollution, hiss, health and bomb) as positive or negative as fast as
possible . The background of the word was made of a facial image tl! at was either
attractive or unattractive. The authors found that words were more qmckly correctly
marked positive when the background was an attractive face, and this effect was
even stronge r when female faces were involved. Thus, the. study also .supports the
ste reotype "what is feminine is good ", which is usually mamfest by attnbuung more
positive traits to more feminine individuals (Perrett et al. , 1998) ·
.
The connection between attractive ness and positive attributions see ms to be highly
robust. However, what is the cause of such stereotyping? Does beauty bring be nefits ,
and does ugliness bring disadvantages? A recent study suggests that disadva ntages
linked with unattractive faces are probably the origin of the stereotype "what is
beautiful is good ". Authors fo und more negative attributes associat~d with una ttr~c­
tive faces than positive attributes associated with attractive faces (Gr~ffin .& Langlois,
2006). The same results we re found in judgeme nts made by umve rsny stude nts
and by children between the ages of seven and nine (Griffin & Langlois, 2~06) .
Unattractive individuals are conside red less altmistic, less intelligent, less soCiable
(Griffin & Langlois, 2006) and (for women) more modest (Cunningham: 1986) .
Attractive individuals are judged more positively, but individuals (putatively) possessing positive traits are also considered to be mo re attractive (G.r oss & .Crof~on ,
1977; Jense n-Campbell, Graziano, & West, 1995). This app~,oach IS m am f~s t Ill .a
rathe r individualized manner. A pe rson who prefe rs a particular personality trait
also prefers the faces that look like they portray that psychological trait (Little, Burt,
& Perrett, 2006b).
Traits Ascribed to Attractive Individuals
The highest impact of attractive ness can be see n in the field of rom ~ nti c partner
choice. Not surprisingly, both women and men generally prefer attractive people as
sexual partners (Langlois et al. , 2000). According to evolutionary theories, attracti:eness is supposed to be a cue to good health (Thornhill & Gange~ tad, 1999). Desp~te
the fact that attractive individuals are usually conside red h ealthier and more ferule
than un attractive individuals (Cunningham, 1986; Feingold, 1992), the accuracy
of such judgements is rathe r unclear. Anothe r study found a :orrelation b~tween
overall facial attractive ness and perceived health, as judged by mdepe nde ntjudges
Facial Appearance a nd Personality Judge me nt s
127
from patches of facial skin (Jon es et al. , 2004), although actual health status was
not determined. Kalick and colleagues concluded that attractiveness may "suppress
the accurate recognition of health" sin ce the judges used attractiveness as a cue
to health, but actual healti1 was in fact unrelated to facial attractiveness (Kalick,
Zebrowitz, Langlois, &Johnson, 1998). Later, Zebrowitz a nd Rhodes (2004) reanalysed the data separa tely for attractive and un attractive individuals, and they found
a correlation between health and attractiveness only in the latter group. We suppose
that, in ex treme cases, a tight relationship betwee n attractive ness and health may
be found because some health problems relate both to h ealth complain ts and to
abnormal facial traits (e.g., Down's syndrome, foe tal alcohol syndrome). Howeve r,
this does not simply imply that the correlation between attractive ness and health
must be found in the gene ral population.
Nevertheless, some studies have concluded that attractjveness is related to fitness (Ho ne kopp, Rudolph, Beier, Liebert, & Miiller, 2007) an d to ac tual health,
such as good cardiovascular health a nd a lower frequency of headaches and colds
(Shackelford & Larsen, 1999). Further, there is some evide nce of a relationship
betwee n facial attractiveness and MHC-heterozygosity (Robe rts et al. , 2005), which
plays a n important role in the human immune system (Havlicek & Roberts, 2009).
However, results of other studies have not confirmed this link (Coetzee e t al. , 2007;
Th ornh ill et al. , 2003).
To better unde rsta nd the research findin gs, one should look at how ac tu al
health was assessed. Self-assessment is not the most reli able approach since we
cannot d ecide whether attractive individuals h ave be tte r h ealth or whe ther they
just feel h ealthier (Hume & Montgomeri e, 2001; Shackelford & Larsen, 1999) .
Moreover, me mory retrieval con cerning one's h ealth might also be biased. For
instance , attrac tive and un a ttractive individuals might di ffer in remembe ring and
suppressing health proble ms (Hume & Montgome rie, 2001). In addition, most
studies on the correlation between health and a ttractive ness were carried out in
countri es with highly developed standards of medical ca re; this may weake n th e
actual rela tionship. Thus, more studies on subj ects with lower levels of medical
care are n eed ed .
In a ce rtain sense, attractive individuals mi ght be seen as very lucky. The halo
effect of attractive ness makes us consider attractive individuals to be more sociable (Cunningham, 1986; Griffin & Langlois, 2006), warm, communicative, assertive (Cunningham, 1986), less naive (Be rry & McArthur, 1985), more honest, kind ,
responsible (Be rry & McArthur, 1985), sexually warm (Feingold, 1992) and intellige nt (Zebrowitz e t al., 2002; Zebrowitz & Rhodes, 2004). Attractive people d o not
feel lonely or anxious very often (Feingold, 1992) and have better rela tionships with
their friends (Cordeiro, 2005; Zebrowitz & Lee, 1999). We fee l somehow closer to
attractive people, we assume their opinions to be more similar to ours (Mashman,
1978) and we are prone to help them more readily (Cunningham, 1986; Langlois
et al. , 2000) . Interestingly, lying to an attractive pe rson is more difficult than lying
to an un attractive one, as people are able to un cover lying to an attractive person
(according to nonverbal be haviour) more easily (DePaulo, Stone, & Lassiter, 1985) .
A meta-analysis of several hundred studies showed that attractiveness not only influenced judgements of unknown individuals but also judgements made by very fam iliar people, such as within a fami ly or school (Langlois et al. , 2000 ).
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Social Psychological Dynamics
An alternative view sees the allure of atu-active faces indirectly via the association
between amactiveness and positively pe rceived personality traits. In several studies,
Keating proposed (and tested) a hypothesis that attractive faces contain an ideal proportion of perceived warmth and powe r (Keating & Doyle, 2002). Authors manipulated facial pictures by enlarging or shrinking the eyes and mouth by 15 per cent,
and they presented those images as well as the original pictures to judges. They
found that shrinking tl1e eyes and mouth led to lowe r attributed warmth, whereas
enlarging them led to lower attributed power. The original pictures were judged to
be the most powerful, the warmest and the most attractive (Keating & Doyle, 2002).
The authors believed that the manipulation of photographs was not consciously perceived by the raters. However, a negative impression from manipulated images might
be due to changes in proportions between individual facial features, resulting in an
artificial appearance. Whether raters consciously noticed the manipulation is not of
high importance. A similar study was conducted with facial images of US presidents
(Keating, Randall, & Kendrick, 1999). The resultant attributes differed between individuals and depended mainly on each rater's support for the individual presidents
and on the level of babyfacedness of the actual facial traits. For example , the president with the most adult facial traits, Ronald Reagan, was considered less powerful
when his eyes and mouth were enlarged, whereas the same change in Bill Clinton's
face led to attribution of higher attractiveness and honesty (Keating e ta!., 1999).
The halo effect of attractiveness was also found to have a strong effect in everyday life settings. Even judges at court are influenced by a defendant's attractiveness
(Stewart, 1980). People released from prison who underwent an aesthetic operation were reimprisoned less often than their peers, although tl1ey did not break the
law again less often than "unimproved" parolees (Stewart, 1980) . An attractive face
plays a significant role in career building as well. A career depends not only on the
ability to do a job well but also on relationships with one's colleagues and boss. No
wonder the achievements of attractive people are higher (Langlois et a!., 2000).
They are more popular with others, other people help them more readily and the
overall approach to attractive people is generally more positive (Cunningham,
1986; Langlois eta!., 2000) . Attractive people are considered more qualified, they
gain higher salaries (Hamermesh & Biddle, 1994) and they get a job more easily
(Cunningham, 1986). Consequently, attractive people achieve a higher socioeconomic status and, in their middle age, they feel they have more control over their
job (Andreoletti, Zebrowitz, & Lachman, 2001) .
Desirable characteristics attributed to attractive individuals seem to be a ubiquitous phenomenon; however, the accuracy of such attribution varies highly. Although
some differences in the personality of attractive and unattractive individuals have
bee n found, they are not as immense as the differe nces between traits attributed to
these groups of people. Attractive people seem to be more socially skilled (Feingold,
1992), sociable, extraverted and with more traditional opinions (Langlois et a!.,
2000). Moreover, they see their own abilities and psychological health more positively (Langlois eta!., 2000).
The pe rsonality and social difference between attractive and unattractive people
is perhaps shaped from childhood. Children with cute faces are treated preferentially in various contexts. As was already mentioned above, the self-fulfilling prophecy effect might be operating in forming higher intelligence in more attractive
children. Another example of differential treatment is punishing; adults punish the
Facial Appearance and Personality Judgements
129
same misbehaviour more strictly whe n committed by not particularly cute children,
although they do not consciously consider more cute children to be more industrious, careful, intelligent or attentive tl1an other children (Berkowitz & Frodi, 1979).
To make our review comple te, it is important to note that there are also several
traits seen as negative that are typically attributed to attractive individuals. People
believe that the re is a greater probability that a ttractive women will be unfaithful
(Cash & Duncan, 1984; Cunningham, 1986), and they consider attractive wome n
to be vain and materialistic (Dermer & Thiel, 1975) . Attractive individuals may be
judged more strictly when their activity is in conflict with the exp ectations driven
by their appearance (Zebrowitz & Lee, 1999) . For example, a criminal act- especially a viole nt one- committed by an attractive person may be regarded as more
serious than when committed by a person whose appearance is not in conflict with
that act (Patzer, 2006). Physical attractiveness could also have a negative impact
on the evaluation of the seriousness of attractive individuals' health problems. As
attractiveness is generally connected with the impression of good health, physicians
could underestimate the h ealth problems of attractive people. For instance, one
study concluded that practitioners tend to evaluate the level of pain exp erienced by
attractive people as lower than the level of pain experienced by unattractive people
(Hadjistavropoulos, Ross, & Von Baeyer, 1990).
There are at least two models that explain the formation of congruency be tween
attractiveness and personality traits (i.e., when an attractive individual possesses personality traits matching the attractiveness halo effect) . Both assume that self-assessed
attractiveness and attractiveness rated by others are highly correlated, although a
meta-analysis of thirty studies in fact showed that the correlation between these two
measures is rather moderate (Feingold, 1992). The expectancy model states that people
who find themselves to be attractive simply conform to tl1e stereotypical expectancies
surrounding the personality of an attractive person (Feingold, 1992) . This model is
closely related to the self-fulfilling prophecy model, except here atu-active individuals can develop the characteristics typical for attractive people according to tl1eir own
expectations about attractive people's personalities and not necessarily according to
shared expectations about attractive individuals. The self-esteem model suggests that selfassessed attractiveness, as well as the development of personality traits such as mental
health, depends on general self-esteem (Feingold, 1992) . Thus, self-esteem should
correlate with self-assessed attractiveness and simultaneously witl1 other related traits
that comprise the typical personality of an attractive individual.
In the vast majority of studies, attractiveness is assessed by independent raters.
However, self-assessed attractiveness certainly has a much higher influence on the
everyday social life and self-concept of an individual. Although it seems clear that
attractive people are happie r, attractiveness judged by others is only slightly related
to well-being, with self-assessed attractiveness related much more strongly (Diener,
Wolsic, & Fujita, 1995). Thus, attractiveness does not guarantee well-being; rather,
more satisfied people perceive themselves to be more attractive.
Sexual Dimorphism of the Face
Female and male adult faces differ on average in the manifestation of various features. For instance, male faces often have a sharper chin, deeper root of nose,
more protruding eyebrow ridges and so on. Typical male or female facial traits also
130
Social Psychological Dynamics
evoke certain pe rsonality characteristics, and these assoc iations could conseque ntly
influence prefere nces for the facial traits. First, let's have a look at male faces.
Evolutionary theories of human mate choice predict preferences for masculine
facial traits as they might indicate good health. Testosterone, which is responsible
for the manifestation of masculine traits, also decreases immunocompetence, and,
thus, it is thought that masculine traits can be fully manifest only in highly immunocompetent individuals (Folstad & Karter, 1992). Alternatively, the preference for
masculine men can be preference for more mature men because perceived masculinity increases with age (Boothroyd et al., 2005). It is expected that the preference
for more mature men reflects women's emphasis on social status, which generally
increases with men's age (Boothroyd et al., 2005). However, the results of empirical
stlldies on the attractiveness of masculine faces have come to mixed conclusions.
Some authors explain such contradictory results by the personality characteristics
connected with masculine traits, which are mainly undesirable and can decrease the
preference for masculine physical traits. There is a connection between masculinity
and personality characteristics seen as negative or undesirable for long-term partnerships, such as dominance and aggressiveness (Swaddle & Reierson, 2002) . Besides
higher facial masculinity, perceived dominance is also connected to brown eye colour (in contrast to blue eye colour) (Kleisner, Kocnar, Rubesova, & Flegr, 201 0).
In contrast, more feminine male faces are perceived to be more sociable, modest,
honest and warm (Cunningham, 1986; Perrett et al., 1998) . Such attributions might
explain the prefe rence for slightly feminized male faces. Male facial images that are
digitally manipulated to increase masculinity are more like ly assumed to be more
threatening, inconsistent, manipulating, selfish, dominant and impulsive (Johnston
et al., 2001). This suggests that the preference for male sexual dimorphism is far
more variable than the preference for sexual dimorphism in female faces. There is
a positive relationship between the extent to which a face is perceived as masculine
and the extent to which it is perceived to be physically attractive, sexually exciting,
healthy and protective, but this relatjonship tails off at a certain level, beyond which
further increases in masculinity can actually lead to decreases in perceptions of
these attributes (Johnston et al., 2001). Masculine faces are typically preferred by
a certain group of women: for example, by attractive females (Little et al., 2001;
Penton-Voak et al., 2003), by women in the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle
(Johnston et al., 2001; Penton-Voak & Perrett, 2000), by women currently engaged
in a partnership and taking hormonal contraception (Little, Jones, Penton-Voak,
Burt, & Perrett, 2002) or by women looking for short-term relationships (Little et
al., 2002; Penton-Voak et al., 2003). All of this evidence supports the hypothesis
that women use masculinity as a cue of good genes rather than as a cue of desirable
characteristics related to partnerships and fatherhood.
An important agent related both to personality traits - especially to antisocial
and dominant behaviour- and to masculine facial traits is testosterone (Mazur &
Booth, 1998; Penton-Voak & Chen, 2004). Females with a high level of testosterone
in th eir saliva consider themselves to be self-directed, action-oriented and resourceful, whe reas women with a low level of testosterone consider themselves to be more
conventional, socialized, caring, anxious and dejec ted (Baucom, Besch, & Callahan,
1985). Other people indeed judge wome n with higher salivary testoste rone as more
e nerge tic (Dabbs, 1997). The pe rsonality features ascribed to peopl e with different
Facial Appearance and Personality Judgeme nts
131
leve ls of tes tosterone are also influe nced by facia l expression . The smi le of hightestosterone mal es is qu alita tive ly different from the smile of low-testoste rone
males- high-testoste ron e males e ngage specific smi le muscles (musculus zygomatiws
major and m. o-rbicularis oculi, which are involved mainly in spontaneous smiles) to
a lesse r extent (Dabbs, 1997). Mal es with hig her testosterone levels are often rated
more dominant, more energetic and less friendly, especially when the photographs
being rated are of smi lin g individuals (Dabbs, 1997).
Dominant facial features, which are very closely related to masculine features, may
also play a role in men's careers. Males with more dominant-looking faces achieve
higher military ranks more quickly, at least among lower positions (Mazur, Mazur,
& Keating, 1984). Dominant-looking men also start their sexual life earlier (Mazur,
Halpern, & Udry, 1994).
Prefe re nces for sexual dimorphism and attributed personality traits with regard to
female faces are much more unequivocal. Feminine faces are rated as highly attractive (Johnston et al., 2001), and the personality features and behaviour expected
from feminine females are very simi lar to the personality traits and behaviour
expected from attractive females. The attributions are made in congrue nce with
the halo effect of attractiveness and other principles regarding the social pe rception
ofattractive people (Cunningham, 1986).
Physical Resemblance
The attribution of personality traits according· to facial appearance is largely influe nced by the familiarity of the judged face. Physical features known to the person include features typical to the rater's culture o r ethn icity (Cunningham et al.,
1995), common among the rater's acquaintances (Buckingham et al., 2006) and
similar to those of the judging individual (DeBruine, 2004a). Not only do people
ascribe more positive personality traits to acquaintances (Buckingham et al. , 2006;
DeBruine, 2002) and conside r them more attractive, but they also consider more
attractive faces to be more familiar (Rhodes, Halberstadt, & Brajkowich, 2001). In
other words, the more attractive the raters found the face, the more confident were
they that they had already seen the person (Monin, 2003). The need to distinguish
relatives (or acquaintances) from strangers is also expressed in the level of brain
activity; human brain activity differs when watching a formerly seen face and a completely unknown face (l~ossion, Schiltz, Robaye, Pirenne, & Crommelinck, 2001).
To study the effect of self-resembling facial traits on personality attributions and
attractiveness, the composite images technique has bee n employed . This computer
technique allows research ers to create facial pictures containing the rater's photograph . Lisa DeBruine (2004a) found that we conside r self-resembling faces to
be more beautiful, especially when judging same-sex faces. From an evolutionary
point of view, this finding might be interpreted as evidence for the need to associate
with re latives (high attractiveness of same-sex self-resembling faces ) while avoiding inbreeding (lower attractiveness of other-sex se lf-resembling faces) . Interplay
betwee n similarity and other traits that influe nce facial judge me nts is poorly understood. Recently, it was shown that preference for similarity is weaker than the preference for sexual dimorphism (Saxton , Little , Rowland, Gao, & Robe rts, 2009).
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Social Psychological Dynamics
Studies employing composite pictures of babies who are three to six months old
showed that both men and wome n rated self-resembling faces of babies as more
attractive than other faces and were more willing to invest in them (e.g. , in terms
of time or money) (DeBruine, 2004b). A similar study concluded that self-resemblance influences women's a ttitudes to a child more than it influences men's attitudes. More specifically, males tended to prefer self-resembling children more than
females did (Platek, Burch, Panyavin, Wasserman, & Gallup, 2002). This might be
due to paternity uncertainty of males who can be expected to be more sensitive to
cues of resemblance that point to biological kinship with the child. According to
this scenario, men sensitive to such cues passed their genes to other generations in
higher proportions because they were probably not raising the children of other
men.
Alongside greater attractiveness, self-resembling faces are also seen as more trustworthy (Buckingham et al., 2006; DeBruine, 2002). People trust putative opponents
more if their faces contain their own facial traits, rather than those of dissimilar
opponents. Interestingly, self-resemblance did not affect behaviour towards the
opponent; the rater behaved equally selfishly to all of the virtual players of the
experimental game (DeBruine, 2002).
Babyfacedness
According to Konrad Lorenz's baby-schema (1981) the young of some birds and
mammals, including humans, possess some typical physical traits, such as large eyes,
a large cranium (relative to face size), a small chin and a large head (relative to body
size). Accurate perception of these traits and the spontaneous reaction by adults
are necessary constituents of care for altricial young. The common occurrence of
the baby-schema and its perception by adults in different animal species, as well
as the fact that even six-month-old children respond positively to the baby-schema
(Zebrowitz, 1997), indicate that the reaction to the baby-schema is at least to some
extent genetically fixed. Among various animal species, including humans, physical traits that indicate immaturity protect the holder against aggressive behaviour,
predominantly by adult males (Berkowitz & Frodi, 1979; McCabe, 1984) and bring
about caring behaviour of other individuals (Alley, 1983). The evidence that children who look older become victims of abuse more often is a cruel confirmation of
the baby-schema in action (McCabe, 1984) .
According to Diane Berry, who devoted her research to the exploration of the
effect of the babyface, attributed babyfacedness correlates with large eyes, high eyebrows and a small chin in men (Berry & McArthur, 1985). Later work has found that
a babyface is characterized by large eyes, a round face, thin eyebrows and a small
nose bridge (Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992) . Over the lifespan, absolute babyfacedness in both sexes declines, but it demonstrates differential stability in women
betwee n childhood and early adulthood and in me n between childhood and their
thirties (Zebrowitz, Olson, & Hoffman, 1993) . In other words, a woman possessing
babyface traits in early adulthood was also relatively highly babyfaced during her
childhood. Lower differe ntial stability is found from childhood to puberty, whe n
adult facial traits evolve. Lower differential stability ofbabyfacedness in adult females
Facial Appearance and Personality Judgeme nts
133
(in comparison to adult males ) can be explained by more substantial changes in
females' soft tissues- the formation of wrinkles and decreasing elasticity of eyelids
(which makes the eyes seem smaller) (Zebrowitz e t al., 1993).
Facial traits typical for babies are related to traits typical for attractive female faces
(Cunningham, 1986). Some authors suppose that attractiveness and babyfacedness correlate in both sexes (Zebrowitz et al., 1993). Prefe rence for traits typical
for babies in adult faces change with the situational context; when the rater feels
threatened, babyfaced adults are rated as less attractive (Pettijohn & Tesser, 2005).
People possessing babyface traits are usually ascribed personality characteristics
typical for babies, perhaps by means of the overgeneralization effect. The ascribed
features may include lower social autonomy, lower physical strength, higher naivety,
higher warmth (Berry & McArthur, 1985; Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992), lower
dominance (Keating & Bai, 1986) and higher honesty (Berry & McArthur, 1985;
Masip, Garrido, & Herrero, 2004). Large eyes, which are a strong predictor of the
degree of babyfacedness, relate to the attribution of traits such as honesty, agreeableness, empathy and nurturance (Paunonen, Ewan, Earthy, Lefave, & Goldberg,
1999) . A detailed analysis has confirmed that the attributions we re indeed made on
the basis of babyfacedness and not according to the lower perceived age or different level of attractiveness of the babyfaced individuals (Berry & McArthur, 1985). As
shown above, a number of studies have confirmed the halo effect of babyfacedness.
On the one hand, we have strong evidence supporting the idea of shared expectations regarding the personality of babyfaced individuals. On the other hand, the
findings that relate to the accuracy of such judgements vary.
One study concluded that babyfaced men around the age of eighteen achieved
higher education on average than their peers (Zebrowitz, Andreoletti, Collins, Lee,
& Blumenthal, 1998) . Interestingly, the relationship between babyfacedness and
achieved education was not found in above-average socioeconomic status groups
(Zebrowitz et al., 1998). A detailed analysis including personality data of the subjects revealed that babyfaced males achieved a higher level of education thanks to
their higher motivation to succeed (Zebrowitz et al., 1998). Possibly, the self-defeating prophecy effect was apparent in this case. In other words, babyfaced men are
opposed to the low expectations held by of others regarding their possible educational success, and as a result actually achieve a higher level of education than
more adultfaced me n. Interestingly, this effect was not found in women (Zebrowitz
et al., 1998). The correlation between babyface physical traits and personality or
behaviour is significantly shaped by the social environment. Babyfaced males coming from a low socioeconomic status environment break the law more often than
males with adult facial features, whereas in males from high socioeconomic environments, the relationship was opposite - adultfaced males broke the law more
often (Zebrowitz e t al., 1998) . Babyfaced males also behave differently during social
inte ractions with females. A study in which 114 individuals ke pt a diary on their
social interactions for one wee k found that babyfaced males expressed lower control over their interactions with women and established more intimate relationships
with other males (Berry & Landry, 1997). Similarly, babyfaced boys be tween the ages
of ten and seventeen have diffe rent relationships with their parents from their less
babyfaced peers (Zebrowitz & Lee, 1999). However, the effect was age dependent.
Whereas babyfaced young adult females expressed lowe r control over their partners,
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Social Psychological Dynamics
babyfaced male subj ects of the same age exp ressed higher control over their partne rs. Babyfacedness in middle-aged adults is connected with the greate r perception
of strong exte rnal constrai nts (which indicate to what extent one believes there are
o bstacles or factors beyond one's con trol that inte rfere with reachin g goals) and
lower control over work and finances. Inte restingly, older babyfaced individuals,
especially women, perceive fewer co nstraints than more adultfaced people of the
same age group (Andreoletti e t al. , 2001) . T hese findings are congruent with the
self-fulfilling prophecy effect leading to the corresponde nce be twee n appearance
and expec ted personality (e.g., young babyfaced wome n are expected to h ave less
control over the ir partne rs) and evidence indicating that people compensate for
negative expectancies such as the self-defeating proph ecy effect (e.g., young babyfaced men are expected to have greate r control over their partners).
T he level of babyfacedness probably influences the self-concept of an individual.
Children who look older can be ascribed abilities typical for older children (Ritter,
Casey, & Langlois, 1991) and whe n such expecta tions are not fulfilled, the childre n
may be conseque ntly regarded as Jess competent than mo re babyfaced childre n of
the same age. Similarly, babyfaced adults m ay be assumed to be submissive, mild or
Jess bright (Paunone n et al., 1999; Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992). If these expectations are not fulfill ed, other people may be surprised and reassess their opinion
about the person. Dominant behaviour by babyfaced individual may evoke negative
reactions from others (e.g., he or she may seem to suffer from the "Napoleonic
complex" ). On the other hand , exceptional inte llectual capacity of babyfaced inclividuals may make others consider them eve n brighte r than an equally inte llige nt,
but less babyfaced individual.
Facial Expressions
Most of the above-mentioned studies some how control for diffe re nces in the facial
expressions of photographed individuals- usually by instructing them to pose with
a ne utral facial expression. Nevertheless, in our eve ryday life, we rarely pose absolutely neutrally. Thus, it is not surprisin g· that people also judge othe rs according
to their facial expressions. A mome ntary state conveyed by a facial expression can
be understood as a cue to a more stabl e pe rsonality characte ristic. Smiling p eople
are conside red more affili ative (Montepare & Dobish, 2003) but also more dominant (Dabbs, 1997; Monte pare & Dobish, 2003). This evidence might seem contradictory, give n th e assumption that smiles probably evolved from the expression
of submission in apes (Eibl-Eibesfeld, 1989). On the other hand , laughte r is probably derived from the expression of threat (Ei bl-Eibesfeld, 1989) . If studi es do not
discriminate between smiles and laughter, they may obtain contradictory resul ts.
Further, some authors distinguish seve ral forms of smiles that could have differe nt effects o n personality judgements (Ekman & Friesen, 1978 ). People showing
expressions of surprise are judged to be simila r to people with happy expressions
- more sociable and dominant (Montepare & Dobish, 2003) . Angry individuals
are perceived as dominant but not sociable, and people with sad or fearful expressions are judged to be submissive and less sociable (Montepare & Dobish, 2003).
A particular repeated emotional expression can g radually inscribe itself into our
Facial Appearance a nd Pe rsona lity J udgeme nt s
135
faces and create an impression of permanent e motional excitation , even when posing neutrally (Mal atesta et al., 1987) . For exampl e, th e anxious neutral expression
of a nxio us people may be perceived as an expression of sad ness (Malatesta et al. ,
1987) . T hus, even a neutral expression may - especially in older people - point
(ofte n erroneously) to th e expression of a specific emotion and conseq ue ntly influence personality attributions made on the basis of limited information regardi ng
the judged person.
Focus on judging Individuals
Sensitivity to specific personality traits can be modulated by cultural values.
Personality traits valued by a specific culture m ay be judged more easily on the basis
of a more limited amount of information. Such traits may include conscie ntiousness or agreeableness in collec tivist: cultures and domina nce and extraversion in
individualistic cultures (Bo nd & Forgas, 1984). (In collectivist cui tures, people tend
to define themselves according to their place in society, whe reas people are usually
more autonomous in individualistic cultures.)
Similarly, the personality of the pe rceiver plays a role in the process of judging
othe r people. It was found that personality traits typical for the p erce iver are also
those that the perceiver is sensitive to in other people. For instance, dominant people first notice the degree of assertiveness in others, whereas dependent individuals notice the level of affiliation first (Batt:istich & Aronoff, 1985) . In th e current
Euro-American culture that e mphasizes justice for all, people tend to beli eve that
everyone has what they d eserve and that eve ryon e deserves what they have. Hence,
we tend to favour the "winners", and physically attractive individuals are among
them. People who score higher in the Just World Belief Scale are more liable to the
halo effec t of attrac tive ness; that is, they asc ribe positive traits more readily accordin g to the attractiveness of the person be ing judged (Dion & Dion, 1987). Another
factor that: has bee n shown to be related to the te ndency to judge others on the basis
of appearance is high self-monitoring- the effort to present oneself prope rly and
regulate the impression one makes (Snyder, Berscheid, & Glick, 1985 ). Such people
try h ard to conform to various situations, are more sensitive to cues that indicate
situa tional suitability or unsuitability in themselves and in others and e mphasize
the importance of physical appeara nce. Furthermore, people who score low on th e
Need for Cognition scale make their judgem ents of others more congrue nt with
the h alo effectofa ttrac tive ness (Pe rlini & Hansen, 2001). These individuals a re less
interested in thinking a nd solving problems, and wh en they make judgements, they
rely o n peripheral inform ation, includin g the level of attractive ness.
An experimental study has found that focusing on more releva nt information,
such as specific behavioural displays, decreases the influe nce of attractjve ness on
personality judgem en ts (Ritte r & Langlois, 1988). The impact of appearance on personalityjudgements depends in the first place o n the amoun t and character of other
avai lable information relating to the judged person . In o ur everyday life, we rarely
draw conclusions regarding othe r people me rely according to facial photographs.
Usually, we can refer to additional information, such as nonverbal displays (Be rry,
1991 ), actions (Locksley, Hepburn, & O rtiz, 1982), knowledge abo ut the person and
136
Social Psychological Dynamics
personal expe rience (Letzring, Wells, & Funde r, 2006) . With an increasing amount
of information about the judged person,judgement accuracy increases, but betweenjudge consensus does not. In other words, eliminating information such as voice or
nonverbal behaviour leads to less accurate judgements (Borkenau & Lieber, 1992) .
When judging unknown individuals, the effect of the first impression has a substantial impact since we give higher significance to it than to subsequent impressions (Jones, Rock, Shaver, Goethals, & Ward, 1968). The first information is used
to create a schema concerning the judged person, and subsequent perception is
guided by the schema. During an encounter with an unknown individual, the first
impression is often represented by appearance. If we obtain cues regarding the
abilities or personality of the person before information regarding their appearance, then the effect of appearance is much lower compared to situations when we
first see the person (Zebrowitz, 1997). Appearance can also gain some importance
if attention to other information is limited (Gilbert & Krull, 1988).
Judgement accuracy can also be improved if the judge is explicitly required to take
responsibility for his or her judgement. If the judges are warned that the accuracy of
their judgements will be checked, they pay more attention to information about the
judged person; as a result, they judge the person more accurately (Tetlock & Kim,
1987). Moreover, judges are able to estimate the accuracy of specific aspects of their
judgement more precisely (Tetlock & Kim, 1987). This sort of explicit responsibility
can override the automatic process of impression creation and control information
processing. Thus, explicit responsibility acts better to prevent stereotypical thinking than it does to redress conclusions already drawn. If judges are motivated to
make their judgements as accurate as possible, they do not categorize the person so
much as evaluate him or her on an individual basis (and consider that person more
likeable) (Neube rg & Fiske, 1987). Higher responsibility for the judgement can
also be induced by making the judge anticipate a meeting with the judged person
(Harkness, DeBonno, & Borgida, 1985).
Facial Appearance and Pe rsonality Judgements
137
d egree tl1ey are influe n ced by the attractive ness of the targe t p eople when they
judge particular personality traits such as sociability (Hepburn & Locksley, 1983).
In spite of a gene tic component to our social perceptions, we are not blind
machines judging only according to another person's appearance. Stereotypes
can be weakened, for example, by access to additional information regarding the
judged person (Gilbert & Krull, 1988; Locksley eta!., 1982) or by perceiving the
importance of the judgement made (Harkness eta!., 1985; Neuberg & Fiske, 1987;
Tetlock & Kim, 1987) . As we can see in the case of racial discrimination, people can
be aware of judgements based on shared stereotypes. Analysis of data regarding
the condemned in Florida between 1998 and 2002 showed that the severity of the
punishment reflected the history of criminal activity of the individual but not his or
her e thnicity. On the other hand, within each ethnicity, higher sentences were given
to people with more pronounced Afrocentric facial traits (Blair, Judd, & Chapleau,
2004). Thus, we can conclude that it is substantially more difficult to recognize individual facial traits that can lead to discriminatory treatment than to try to behave
fairly to different groups of people. (On the other hand, efforts to compensate the
influence of appearance can also lead to the "positive discrimination" of formerly
disadvantaged groups, which is also a controversial theme.)
Based on the scientific evidence and on everyday life experience, we can conclude
that the face is an extremely powerful instrument of interpersonal communication.
On the one hand, it includes some cues to one's inne r states and p ersonality; on
the other hand, the process of "face reading" is obscured by excessive categorization and stereotyping. The theme is certainly a hot topic in the fields of social psychology, health and business psychology. This review aimed to summarize the most
significant aspects of personality attribution made on the basis offacial appearance
as viewed by current scholarly literature. Many of the cited studies employ an evolutionary approach to the study of human behaviour, which is, in our view, a fruitful
platform that takes into account evolutionary processes and brings ultimate framework for the studied phenomena.
Do We Judge Others' Personalities Consciously?
Acknowledgements
A large amount of scientific literature , as well as our everyday experience, shows
us the ubiquity of stereotypy in attitudes to people based on their different appearances. Perception of some "key" cues (such as the baby-schema) helps us to quickly
judge others' personalities. Surprisingly, this simplified approach is used injudgements not only when judges are assessing strangers but also when they are assessing
their children, teachers and close family members (Langlois eta!., 2000). Research
suggests that it is not necessary to think deeply about someone to form a relatively
relevant judgement about him or her. Judgements made under time pressure (e.g.,
after seeing the face of the target person for 100 ms) correlate strongly with judgements made without time constraints (Willis & Todorov, 2006). The results indicate
that judgements are made at least partially unconsciously. The tendency to judge
the personality of others according to their facial appearance is manifest both at
a conscious and unconscious level: For example, people cannot estimate to what
We thank Jindra Havlickova, Jitka Lindova and Tamsin K. Saxton for valuable advice and
language corrections. The study was supported by grants, GACR P407 /11/1464, GACR
406/09/0647, GACR 406/07/0705 and MSM 0021620843.
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Section 3
Family and Adolescent