What Is Typical Is Good: The Influence of Face Typicality on Perceived Trustworthiness

The role of face typicality in face recognition is well established, but it is unclear whether face typicality is important for face evaluation. Prior studies have focused mainly on typicality's influence on attractiveness, although recent studies have cast doubt on its importance for attractiv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2015-01, Vol.26 (1), p.39-47
Main Authors: Sofer, Carmel, Dotsch, Ron, Wigboldus, Daniel H. J., Todorov, Alexander
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Beauty
Face
Facial Recognition - physiology
Female
Group attraction
Humans
Judgement
Judgment
Judgment - physiology
Perceptions
Recognition (Psychology) - physiology
Social influence
Social Perception
Social psychology
Trust
Variance
Young Adult
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Summary:The role of face typicality in face recognition is well established, but it is unclear whether face typicality is important for face evaluation. Prior studies have focused mainly on typicality's influence on attractiveness, although recent studies have cast doubt on its importance for attractiveness judgments. Here, we argue that face typicality is an important factor for social perception because it affects trustworthiness judgments, which approximate the basic evaluation of faces. This effect has been overlooked because trustworthiness and attractiveness judgments have a high level of shared variance for most face samples. We show that for a continuum of faces that vary on a typicality-attractiveness dimension, trustworthiness judgments peak around the typical face. In contrast, perceived attractiveness increases monotonically past the typical face, as faces become more like the most attractive face. These findings suggest that face typicality is an important determinant of face evaluation.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797614554955