First Impressions of Personality Traits From Body Shapes

People infer the personalities of others from their facial appearance. Whether they do so from body shapes is less studied. We explored personality inferences made from body shapes. Participants rated personality traits for male and female bodies generated with a three-dimensional body model. Multiv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2018-12, Vol.29 (12), p.1969-1983
Main Authors: Hu, Ying, Parde, Connor J., Hill, Matthew Q., Mahmood, Naureen, O’Toole, Alice J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arachnids
Bedding
Body shape
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Five factor model
Human body
Impressions
Openness
Personality
Personality traits
Reliability
Stereotypes
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Summary:People infer the personalities of others from their facial appearance. Whether they do so from body shapes is less studied. We explored personality inferences made from body shapes. Participants rated personality traits for male and female bodies generated with a three-dimensional body model. Multivariate spaces created from these ratings indicated that people evaluate bodies on valence and agency in ways that directly contrast positive and negative traits from the Big Five domains. Body-trait stereotypes based on the trait ratings revealed a myriad of diverse body shapes that typify individual traits. Personality-trait profiles were predicted reliably from a subset of the body-shape features used to specify the three-dimensional bodies. Body features related to extraversion and conscientiousness were predicted with the highest consensus, followed by openness traits. This study provides the first comprehensive look at the range, diversity, and reliability of personality inferences that people make from body shapes.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797618799300