Changing the Personality of a Face: Perceived Big Two and Big Five Personality Factors Modeled in Real Photographs

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology 2016-04, Vol.110 (4), p.609-624
• Main Authors: Walker, Mirella, Vetter, Thomas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Face; Face Perception; Facial Recognition; Female; Five Factor Personality Model; Human; Humans; Judgement; Judgment; Male; Perception; Perceptions; Personality; Personality traits; Social Dominance; Social Perception; Trust; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000064

General, spontaneous evaluations of strangers based on their faces have been shown to reflect judgments of these persons' intention and ability to harm. These evaluations can be mapped onto a 2D space defined by the dimensions trustworthiness (intention) and dominance (ability). Here we go beyond general evaluations and focus on more specific personality judgments derived from the Big Two and Big Five personality concepts. In particular, we investigate whether Big Two/Big Five personality judgments can be mapped onto the 2D space defined by the dimensions trustworthiness and dominance. Results indicate that judgments of the Big Two personality dimensions almost perfectly map onto the 2D space. In contrast, at least 3 of the Big Five dimensions (i.e., neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness) go beyond the 2D space, indicating that additional dimensions are necessary to describe more specific face-based personality judgments accurately. Building on this evidence, we model the Big Two/Big Five personality dimensions in real facial photographs. Results from 2 validation studies show that the Big Two/Big Five are perceived reliably across different samples of faces and participants. Moreover, results reveal that participants differentiate reliably between the different Big Two/Big Five dimensions. Importantly, this high level of agreement and differentiation in personality judgments from faces likely creates a subjective reality which may have serious consequences for those being perceived-notably, these consequences ensue because the subjective reality is socially shared, irrespective of the judgments' validity. The methodological approach introduced here might prove useful in various psychological disciplines.