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The Impact of Litigants' Baby-Facedness and Attractiveness on Adjudications in Small Claims Court
Abstract
The effects of litigants' facial appearance on judicial decisions were investigated in 506 cases heard in small claims courts. Replicating previous laboratory studies, both baby-facedness and attractiveness exerted a significant impact on adjudications. As plaintiffs increased in attractiveness, defendants were more likely to lose the case. Also, as defendants increased in baby-facedness, they were more likely to win cases involving intentional actions and less likely to win cases involving negligent actions, although the latter simple effect was not significant. Finally, as defendants increased in facial maturity, they were required to pay larger monetary awards to baby-faced plaintiffs, albeit not to average or mature-faced plaintiffs. This pattern of decisions was interpreted as reflecting assumptions about the psychological attributes of baby-faced versus mature-faced individuals. The effects of the extralegal variables of litigant attractiveness and baby-facedness were sufficiently large to have practical as well as statistical significance, and they were independent of each other and the age of the litigants as well as of legal variables predicting adjudications.
... Appearance-based stereotyping undermines people's right to a fair trial (Lown, 1977). Yet, a host of studies has shown that facial stereotypes influence many real-life legal outcomes (Berry & Zebrowitz-McArthur, 1988;Eberhardt, Davies, Purdie-Vaughns, & Johnson, 2006;Porter et al., 2010;Wilson & Rule, 2015Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). ...
... Similar to Zebrowitz and McDonald (1991), we focus on sentencing decisions in small claims court. Small claims court judges hear civil cases in which people can sue private citizens for relatively small amounts of money (e.g., up to $5000; the exact amount varies across countries). ...
... Given that small claims rulings reflect a more subjective interpretation of the evidence by the judge, it is possible that sentences are influenced by facial stereotypes. In fact, Zebrowitz and McDonald (1991) showed that babyfacedness-a facial feature that is correlated with perceived trustworthiness (Berry & Zebrowitz McArthur, 1986;Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992)-predicted outcomes of small claims court rulings. Babyfaced defendants were found guilty less often (although this effect was only found for cases involving intentional, rather than negligent actions). ...
Trait impressions from faces influence many consequential decisions even in situations in which decisions should not be based on a person's appearance. Here, we test (a) whether people rely on trait impressions when making legal sentencing decisions and (b) whether two types of interventions-educating decision-makers and changing the accessibility of facial information-reduce the influence of facial stereotypes. We first introduced a novel legal decision-making paradigm. Results of a pretest (n = 320) showed that defendants with an untrustworthy (vs. trustworthy) facial appearance were found guilty more often. We then tested the effectiveness of different interventions in reducing the influence of facial stereotypes. Educating participants about the biasing effects of facial stereotypes reduced explicit beliefs that personality is reflected in facial features, but did not reduce the influence of facial stereotypes on verdicts (Study 1, n = 979). In Study 2 (n = 975), we presented information sequentially to disrupt the intuitive accessibility of trait impressions. Participants indicated an initial verdict based on case-relevant information and a final verdict based on all information (including facial photographs). The majority of initial sentences were not revised and therefore unbiased. However, most revised sentences were in line with facial stereotypes (e.g., a guilty verdict for an untrustworthy-looking defendant). On average, this actually increased facial bias in verdicts. Together, our findings highlight the persistent influence of trait impressions from faces on legal sentencing decisions.
... Olivola, Eubanks, & Lovelace, 2014;Rezlescu, Duchaine, Olivola, & Chater, 2012;Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, & Hall, 2005;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991 (Todorov et al., 2015). 가령, Lavater (1775) (Todorov, 2017;Todorov et al., 2015).그러나 ...
... 그러나 Lavater (1775) (Antonakis & Delgas, 2009;Blair et al., 2004;Eberhardt et al., 2006;Little et al., 2007;Rezlescu et al., 2012;Todorov et al., 2005;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991 Ballew & Todorov, 2007;Chen, Jing, & Lee, 2014;Lenz & Lawson, 2011;Sussman, Petkova, & Todorov, 2013;Todorov et al., 2005). (Mazur, Mazur, & Keating, 1984;Mueller & Mazur, 1996 (Fukuyama, 1995;Rezlescu et al., 2012 (Willis & Todorov, 2006;Todorov et al., 2009). ...
... 앞서 살펴본 바와 같이, 얼굴 생김새는 일상의 사회적 판단에 영향을 미치고 있다 (Antonakis & Delgas, 2009;Blair et al., 2004;Eberhardt et al., 2006;Little et al., 2007;Rezlescu et al., 2012;Todorov et al., 2005;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991 Rule et al., 2013;Todorov et al., 2015). 그럼에도 불구하고, 우리 는 여전히 얼굴로부터 자동적으로 특성을 유 추하고 있으며 (Todorov et al., 2009;Willis & Todorov, 2006), 때때로 얼굴이 주는 정보에 너 무 현혹된 나머지 보다 중요한 단서를 그냥 지나치는 경우도 흔하다 Todorov et al., 2015). ...
... alone Todorov, Baraon, & Oosterhof, 2008). Moreover, these evaluations can predict important social outcomes (Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009;Rule & Ambady, 2008;Wilson & Rule, 2015;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). However, the role that cultural contexts play in face-to-trait inferences has not been fully examined. ...
... Our data add to this body of research by showing that, although both European Americans and East Asians ascribe traits to individuals based on facial features, European Americans make stronger trait ascriptions than do East Asians. Given the known effect of facial features on important outcomes, such as election outcomes and judicial decisions (Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991), the current findings have important implications for potential cultural differences in such outcomes and open the possibilities for future research. For example, Asians' attention to situational information may lead them to make less extreme trait inference from facial features, which could result in a weaker effect on electoral outcomes (e.g., Na et al., 2015). ...
Prior research showed that people make inferences about personality traits based on facial features and that there is cross-cultural consensus concerning such face-based trait inferences. The current research tested whether there are cultural differences in the extent to which people ascribe traits to individuals based on facial features. We built Caucasian and Asian faces using a data-driven statistical model that represents two fundamental social dimensions—trustworthiness and dominance traits—and generated faces that vary on each dimension, ranging from − 4.5 SD to + 4.5 SD. By asking European American and Korean participants to judge these faces, we demonstrated that although trait evaluations tracked the trait intensity predicted by the computer models in both cultures, European American participants inferred more extreme traits from faces than did Korean participants. Cultural differences in the extent of trait ascription were partly explained by attention to situational information. In addition, participants made more differentiated trait ascription based on their own-race faces than other-race faces; this was more pronounced among European American participants.
... This effect has been observed in a controlled laboratory environment and field studies (Leventhal and Krate 1977). Field studies have looked at criminal and civil cases, with decisions made by professional judges or juries in real situations (Zebrowitz and McDonald 1991). People with a baby face are less likely to lose their case than people who are considered to have a mature look. ...
... Macrae and Shepherd (1989) have suggested that a person charged with a crime is more likely to be found guilty due to the guilty face effect if they have a face that "represents" that crime. Facial shape or expression influences criminal justice decisions (Zebrowitz and McDonald, 1991). Appearance is essential when our reactions to a face are arguably relevant to our choices and even when those choices need to be guided by more objective information . ...
The facial recognition process in the brain has a powerful emotional feature. This is why people can rarely be indifferent to facial expressions in their dealings with other people. Every face has a term. Some people appear reliable, helpful, kind, dangerous, harsh, and disloyal in this context. People perceive faces holistically rather than as a set of distinct features. Recognizing faces happens so naturally and quickly that we rarely think twice. Recognizing a face is instant and effortless. In a moment, we realize that we are indeed looking at a face, but we also define who they are and what mood they have. We can identify an individual's identity, attitude, gender, race, age, and direction of attention in a second. Emoticons seem to jump straight into our brains from people's faces. Conveying emotions is one of the most critical roles of the human face. Facial perception has been a topic of debate since the dawn of scientific research. The ability to recognize faces helps communicate with people and learn about the environment. Studies have shown that people with delicate facial features are more likely to be found innocent or innocent. Some people may seem sad, and some may seem threatening. In this study, the reason for this was reviewed using the "literature review" method. In this direction, soft facial expression, facial attractiveness, baby-faced, innocent perception processes were examined. As a result of the study, it was seen that people have stereotypes about facial appearance, and people with soft facial expressions are perceived as more innocent. Two different ways in the face recognition process are the consciousness in the upper layers of the cortex and the unconscious amygdala, which is in the limbic system, which is deep in the brain.
... Overgeneralization from social groups, or stereotyping, also appears to influence impression formation from faces Zebrowitz et al., 2010). Cues to physical maturity which differ between adults and children are also overgeneralized to judge 'baby-faced' and 'mature-faced' adults (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). ...
... By analogy, first impressions are akin to allergies, which also represent highly functional systems (for parasite avoidance) that were protective in our past or for some specific contexts, but become unhelpful when overgeneralized to modern environments or misapplied to the wrong context (Foo et al., 2020). For example, although it is adaptive (and accurate) to be able to discriminate between children and adults, people also overgeneralize to adults who happen to look more or less mature, in often problematic ways (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). ...
Impressions from faces are made remarkably quickly and they can underpin behaviour in a wide variety of social contexts. Over the last decade many studies have sought to trace the links between facial cues and social perception and behaviour. One such body of work has shown clear overlap between the fields of face perception and social stereotyping by demonstrating a role for conceptual stereotypes in impression formation from faces. We integrate these results involving conceptual influences on impressions with another substantial body of research in visual cognition which demonstrates that much of the variance in impressions can be predicted from perceptual, data‐driven models using physical cues in face images. We relate this discussion to the phylogenetic, cultural, individual and developmental origins of facial impressions and define priority research questions for the field including investigating non‐WEIRD cultures, tracking the developmental trajectory of impressions and determining the malleability of impression formation.
... People tend to rely on their appearance-based impressions in extremely high-stakes contexts such as legal (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991) and business decisions (Gorn et al., 2008). For example, baby-faced defendants were less likely to lose cases where the harm was intentional but were more likely to lose cases when the harm was accidental (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). ...
... People tend to rely on their appearance-based impressions in extremely high-stakes contexts such as legal (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991) and business decisions (Gorn et al., 2008). For example, baby-faced defendants were less likely to lose cases where the harm was intentional but were more likely to lose cases when the harm was accidental (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). In an economic game, participants were more likely to invest in partners whose (computer-generated) faces looked more trustworthy, even if these partners had acted in an untrustworthy manner in the past (Rezlescu et al., 2012). ...
People are excessively confident that they can judge others’ characteristics from their
appearance. This research identifies a novel antecedent of this phenomenon. Ten studies
(N=2,967, four pre-registered) find that the more people believe that appearance reveals
character, the more confident they are in their appearance-based judgments, and therefore, the more they support the use of facial profiling technologies in law enforcement, education, and business. Specifically, people who believe that appearance reveals character support the use of facial profiling in general (Studies 1a-1b), and even when they themselves are the target of profiling (Studies 1c-1d). Experimentally inducing people to believe that appearance reveals character increases their support for facial profiling (Study 2) because it increases their confidence in the ability to make appearance-based judgments (Study 3). An intervention that undermines people’s confidence in their appearance-based judgments reduces their support for facial profiling (Study 4). The relationship between the lay theory and support for facial profiling is weaker among people with a growth mindset about personality, as facial profiling presumes a
relatively unchanging character (Study 5a). This relationship is also weaker among people who believe in free will, as facial profiling presumes that individuals have limited free will (Study 5b). The appearance reveals character lay theory is a stronger predictor of support for profiling than analogous beliefs in other domains, such as the belief that FacebookTM likes reveal personality (Study 6). These findings identify a novel lay theory that underpins people’s meta-cognitions about their confidence in appearance-related judgments and their policy positions.
... These evaluations generally are more negative for women than for men. In addition, social psychologists have found that people use visual cues to make judgments about the professionalization, worth, intelligence, and competence of other people (Todorov et al., 2005;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991;Zebrowitz & Montepare, 2005). Specifically, they have found that sexualized clothing promotes the objectification of individuals by dividing them into "parts, " which is likely to generate negativity, resulting in a less complex, more superficial evaluation of that person and of their professional competence (Haslam et al., 2005;Loughnan & Haslam, 2007). ...
Title VII prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace “because of sex.” Once on the job, however, courts allow employers to impose trait discrimination policies on employees, including sex stereotypical ones. Based on a survey experiment, we found that sex stereotyped dress styles for women—defined by bright colors, long hair, excessive make-up in contrast to dark suits, ties, and short hair cuts for men—sexualize women, thereby undermining viewers' perception of women's professional competence. A vast social-psychological literature explains “why.” Specifically, gender is a diffuse status characteristic that generally diminishes the perception of women’s capabilities. Sexualized dress styles augment that effect of gender by diverting viewers' attention from women's job performance to the visual attributes of women as objects. Our study confirms that women’s sexualized dress styles decrease viewers’ perceptions of women’s competence. We contend that this reduction in the perception of women’s competence disproportionately disadvantages members of a protected class, women, and, by so doing, constitutes an “adverse effect”. Notably, Title VII prohibits policies that impose adverse effects. Thus, by integrating legal standards with social psychological scholarship, this study presents a new foundation for the claim many legal scholars have sought to make, namely, why at least some trait discrimination policies violate Title VII.
... When seeing a person for the first time, humans rapidly and automatically make a variety of judgments, such as whether a person looks trustworthy or likable [75,76,78,99]. People's faces can play a significant role in some of society's most important decision-making scenarios: first facial impressions can determine hiring choices [76,84], election outcomes [6,59,77], or jail sentences [26,105,109]. Yet, we are often told not to judge a book by its cover, an imperative that it is morally wrong to form beliefs about a person based on insufficient evidence. Indeed, inferring inner character traits based on looks had been foundational for once lauded physiognomic and phrenological practices in organizations and institutions [22,35,83,92,93]. ...
... Physically attractive people are believed to be more competent, sociable, and intelligent than less attractive people (Dion et al., 1972;Eagly et al., 1991;Feingold, 1992), and more versus less attractive people are expected to achieve more desirable life outcomes, such as marital happiness and occupational success (Dickey-Bryant et al., 1986). Moreover, the effects of attractiveness relate to a wide variety of real-world outcomes that favor the more attractive over the less attractive (Brand et al., 2012;Langlois et al., 2000;Lorenzo et al., 2010;Stewart, 1985;Udry & Eckland, 1984;Van Leeuwen & Macrae, 2005;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). ...
For almost 50 years, psychologists have understood that what is beautiful is perceived as good. This simple and intuitively appealing hypothesis has been confirmed in many ways, prompting a wide range of studies documenting the depth and breadth of its truth. Yet, for what is arguably one of the most important forms of "goodness" that there is-moral goodness-research has told a different story. Although greater attractiveness is associated with a host of positive attributes, it has been only inconsistently associated with greater perceived morality (or lesser immorality), and meta-analyses have suggested the total effect of beauty on moral judgment is near zero. The current research documents one plausible reason for this. Across nine experiments employing a variety of methodological and measurement strategies, we show how attractiveness can be perceived as both morally good and bad. We found that attractiveness causally influences beliefs about vanity, which translates into beliefs that more attractive targets are less moral and more immoral. Then, we document a positive association between attractiveness and sociability-the nonmoral component of warmth-and show how sociability exerts a countervailing positive effect on moral judgments. Likewise, we document findings suggesting that vanity and sociability mutually suppress the effects of attractiveness on each other and on moral judgments. Ultimately, this work provides a comprehensive process account of why beauty seems good but can also be perceived as less moral and more immoral, highlighting complex interrelations among different elements of person perception. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... A host of prior work has examined the antecedents and consequences of babyish facial features (Berry & Zebrowitz McArthur, 1985;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991;Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992). However, our studies go beyond this work by examining associations between gullibility impressions and a host of other facial characteristics (including babyfacedness). ...
The success of acts of deceit and exploitation depends on how trusting and naïve (i.e., gullible) targets are. In three preregistered studies, using both theory-driven and data-driven approaches, we examined how people form impressions of gullibility based on targets' facial appearance. We find significant consensus in gullibility impressions, suggesting that people have a somewhat shared representation of what a gullible person looks like (Study 1, n = 294). Gullibility impressions is based on different cues than trustworthiness or dominance impressions, suggesting that they constitute dissociable facial stereotypes (Study 2, n = 403). Examining a wide range of facial features, we find that gullibility impressions are primarily based on resemblance to an angry facial expression. We also find that young, female, and smiling individuals were seen as more gullible (Study 3, n = 209). These findings suggest that gullibility impressions are based on cues linked to low levels of perceived threat.
... In educational psychology, research shows that being attractive confers an opposite-sex advantage in scholarship applications (Agthe et al., 2010), and that the attractive are less likely to be perceived as guilty of plagiarism in addition to receiving lesser punishment for it (Swami et al., 2017). Even in crime it pays to be beautiful-research in forensic psychology shows that defendants are more likely to be convicted of sexual harassment or lose a case in a small claims court if the plaintiff is attractive (Wuensch & Moore, 2004;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991), whereas they are less likely to be convicted of a crime if they themselves are attractive (Castellow et al., 1990). The attractive are also less likely to receive more punitive sentences, whether in simulated or actual trials, than their less attractive counterparts (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994;Stewart, 1980). ...
Article provides a contemporary synopsis of the various and diverse motivations for cosmetic usage using thematic analysis of written scripts.
... In educational psychology, research shows that being attractive confers an opposite-sex advantage in scholarship applications (Agthe et al., 2010), and that the attractive are less likely to be perceived as guilty of plagiarism in addition to receiving lesser punishment for it (Swami et al., 2017). Even in crime it pays to be beautiful-research in forensic psychology shows that defendants are more likely to be convicted of sexual harassment or lose a case in a small claims court if the plaintiff is attractive (Wuensch & Moore, 2004;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991), whereas they are less likely to be convicted of a crime if they themselves are attractive (Castellow et al., 1990). The attractive are also less likely to receive more punitive sentences, whether in simulated or actual trials, than their less attractive counterparts (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994;Stewart, 1980). ...
Given the wealth of literature on appearance manipulation generally, it is, perhaps, surprising that cosmetic usage receives so little empirical attention, and perhaps reflects a patriarchal approach to “appropriate” research areas. Incorporating a postfeminist approach, the current study aims to address, in part, this lacuna by providing a contemporary synopsis of the various and diverse motivations for cosmetic usage. Online, written responses to a semi-structured questionnaire were collected. In response to six broad questions, for example, “Why do you currently use cosmetics?”, respondents were encouraged to write, in as much detail as they liked, on their motivations for using cosmetics. Thematic analysis, using deductive and inductive approaches, revealed four main themes: “Multiple selves”—Conformity, Impression Management, and Judgment; Enhancement and Confidence; Fun, Creativity and Well-being; and Signification and Identity. Whilst some of these themes had been anticipated and, indeed, sign-posted in prior literature, the weight of interest in particular areas was unexpected (e.g., in terms of Fun, Creativity, and Well-being), whilst other areas did not receive the expected attention (e.g., in mate attraction). Additionally, and worthy of future research, entirely new areas also emerged (e.g., cosmetics for fun and creativity).
... Neotenous characteristics make people more attractive, and such features can sway criminal sentencing and imprisonment decisions. For example, a study that examined the effects of litigants' facial appearance on judicial decisions in 506 cases heard in small-claims courts found that both babyfaceness and attractiveness significantly influenced adjudications (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). As plaintiffs' attractiveness increased, defendants were more likely to lose the case. ...
Although empathy drives prosocial behaviors, it is not always a reliable source of information in moral decision making. In this essay, I integrate evolutionary theory, behavioral economics, psychology, and social neuroscience to demonstrate why and how empathy is unconsciously and rapidly modulated by various social signals and situational factors. This theoretical framework explains why decision making that relies solely on empathy is not ideal and can, at times, erode ethical values. This perspective has social and societal implications and can be used to reduce cognitive biases and guide moral decisions.
... Past studies have linked facial attractiveness to perceived moral beauty (i.e., trustworthiness; Ma, Correll, & Wittenbrink, 2015, table 3;Shinners, 2009;Xu et al., 2012). This linkage has implications in many walks of life, particularly the court room, where more attractive individuals benefit from having a higher probability of winning (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). Neuroimaging evidence shows that the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), which is engaged during the experience of beauty derived from different sources (Ishizu & Zeki, 2011;Kawabata & Zeki, 2004;Zeki et al., 2014) is also engaged when subjects experience facial and moral beauty (Kranz & Ishai, 2006;O'Doherty et al., 2003;Tsukiura & Cabeza, 2011). ...
Empirical evidence shows that the often-made positive correlation between human physical and moral beauty is tenuous. In this study, we aimed to learn whether facial and moral beauty can be psychophysically separated. Participants (n = 95) provided beauty and goodness (i.e., trustworthiness) ratings for pictures of faces, after which they were presented with a fictitious peer rating for the same face and asked to re-rate the face. We used the difference between the initial and final ratings to quantify the degree of resistance to external influence. We found that judgments of facial beauty were more resistant to external influence than judgments of facial "goodness"; in addition, there was significantly higher agreement within beauty ratings than within goodness ratings. These findings are discussed in light of our Bayesian-Laplacian classification of priors, from which we conclude that moral beauty relies more upon acquired "artifactual" priors and facial beauty more on inherited biological priors.
... Yet, appearance effects are not consistently negative. For example, in small claims court cases, defendants with baby faces were less likely to be found at fault for intentional actions than their mature-faced counterparts (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). On the whole, there is significant scientific evidence that impressions based on a wide variety of factors, including appearance, can influence decision-making in the courtroom. ...
Around the world, almost every aspect of people’s lives has been affected by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). We focused on one context that has received relatively little attention to date: the courtroom. Guided by established psychological findings and theories, we explored how the emergence of COVID-19 and proposed protective measures against the virus (i.e. face masks, physical distancing) could affect legal decision-making at trial. For the majority of the phenomena that we considered, the extant literature predicted negative or mixed effects. Because it appears likely that extralegal factors related to the pandemic will affect outcomes, the fairness of proceedings must be called into question. Overall, this work suggests that the reopening of the courts might be premature. It also highlights the importance of leveraging established psychological findings to address questions arising from unpredictable events when direct research is not yet available.
... These facial impressions are pervasive: they form rapidly (Willis & Todorov, 2006), and influence peer interactions and social outcomes for both adults and children. Impressions of an adult's face influence their likelihood of winning political elections (Olivola & Todorov, 2010) and receiving harsh criminal sentences (Eberhardt, Davies, Purdie-Vaughns, & Johnson, 2006;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). Impressions of a child's face influence the intensity of discipline that they receive from adults (Berkowitz & Frodi, 1979), as well as their likelihood of being perceived as a leader (Zarbatany & Marshall, 2015) and being trusted by other children (Ewing, Sutherland, & Willis, 2019). ...
Adults teach children not to "judge a book by its cover." However, adults make rapid judgments of character from a glance at a child's face. These impressions can be modestly accurate, suggesting that adults may be sensitive to valid signals of character in children's faces. However, it is not clear whether such sensitivity requires decades of social experience, in line with the development of other face-processing abilities (e.g., facial emotion recognition), or whether this sensitivity emerges relatively early, in childhood. An important theoretical question therefore, is whether or not children's impressions are at all accurate. Here, we examined the accuracy in children's impressions of niceness and shyness from children's faces. Children (aged 7-12 years, ∼90% Caucasian) and adults rated 84 unfamiliar children's faces (aged 4-11 years, 48 female, ∼80% Caucasian) for niceness (Study 1) or shyness (Study 2). To measure accuracy, we correlated facial impressions with parental responses to well-established questionnaires about the actual niceness/shyness of those children in the images. Overall, children and adults formed highly similar niceness (r = .94) and shyness (r = .84) impressions. Children also showed mature impression accuracy: Children and adults formed modestly accurate niceness impressions, across different images of the same child's face. Neither children nor adults showed evidence for accurate shyness impressions. Together, these results suggest that children's impressions are relatively mature by middle childhood. Furthermore, these results demonstrate that any mechanisms driving accurate niceness impressions are in place by 7 years, and potentially before. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... First impressions of dominance and maturity of a company's managing partners are directly correlated with financial success [39]. Baby-faceness-facial traits associated with a lack of dominance and increased trustworthiness-and attractiveness impacted the ruling of judges in small claims court [40]. Extensive psychology research exists examining social bias resulting from first impressions of facial attributes [38,[41][42][43][44], yet there are relatively few forays into this field that make use of computer vision. ...
First impressions make up an integral part of our interactions with other humans by providing an instantaneous judgment of the trustworthiness, dominance and attractiveness of an individual prior to engaging in any other form of interaction. Unfortunately, this can lead to unintentional bias in situations that have serious consequences, whether it be in judicial proceedings, career advancement, or politics. The ability to automatically recognize social traits presents a number of highly useful applications: from minimizing bias in social interactions to providing insight into how our own facial attributes are interpreted by others. However, while first impressions are well-studied in the field of psychology, automated methods for predicting social traits are largely non-existent. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of two automated approaches—multi-label classification (MLC) and multi-output regression (MOR)—for first impression recognition from faces. We demonstrate that both approaches are able to predict social traits with better than chance accuracy, but there is still significant room for improvement. We evaluate ethical concerns and detail application areas for future work in this direction.
... Less than 100 ms of exposure is enough to form impressions on others' character (for a review, see Todorov et al., 2015). These inferences are pervasive, consensual, and linked to significant outcomes, such as voting preferences (e.g., Little et al., 2007;Olivola and Todorov, 2010), leadership selection and compensation (e.g., Rule and Ambady, 2008;Fruhen et al., 2015), and judicial decisions (e.g., Zebrowitz and McDonald, 1991). For instance, facial trustworthiness predicted the willingness to invest more money in others in strategic economic games (Rezlescu et al., 2012;Tingley, 2014), and defendants who have untrustworthy-looking faces were more likely to receive guilty verdicts (e.g., Dumas and Testé, 2006). ...
The present study examined the role of morality, competence, and attractiveness as perceived from faces in predicting hiring decisions for men and women. Results showed that for both female and male applicants, facial competence significantly predicted the hiring decision directly and indirectly, through the mediation of the overall impression. Decisions concerning female applicants were, however, significantly predicted by multiple dimensions—that is, facial morality, facial competence, and attractiveness—with the mediation of the overall impression. Facial competence was the only significant predictor of impression and, in turn, hiring decision about men. These findings resonate the motto Virtutem forma decorat , “Beauty adorns virtue,” painted by Leonardo da Vinci on the reverse side of the portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci, and suggest that women’s chances of getting a job are less than those of men whenever they do not show a moral and competent and attractive face.
... People rely on the facial appearance of strangers to form impressions of their personality (Todorov et al., 2015). These impressions are formed quickly and spontaneously (Klapper et al., 2016;Willis & Todorov, 2006) and can be very consequential: Facial impressions have been shown to influence important decisions, such as legal sentencing (Jaeger et al., 2020;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991), financial decision-making (Duarte et al., 2012), and personnel selection (Gomulya et al., 2017;Ling et al., 2019). ...
Although many facial features elicit similar personality impressions across different perceivers, there are also substantial individual differences. Brown and Sacco conducted several studies to explore which perceiver characteristics explain these differences. Applying the idea of motivational tradeoffs, they showed that extraverted-looking targets are perceived more positively by perceivers whose social needs are more likely to be met by extraverted individuals. Here, we conduct two preregistered replications of their studies, testing if participants with (a) stronger affiliative needs, (b) weaker pathogen concern, and (c) a more unrestricted sociosexual orientation form more positive impressions of extraverted-looking individuals. Using the original stimuli and study design (Study 1, n = 273) and two additional stimulus sets and an improved study design (Study 2, n = 367), we do not find consistent evidence for any of the proposed relationships. Our findings highlight the need for additional research to understand individual differences in social perception.
... Myriad research has examined how facial structural resemblance to emotion expressions relates to impression formation (i.e., emotion overgeneralization). Seminal work has shown that faces with cues that incidentally resemble emotional expressions are subsequently evaluated in terms of that emotional expression (see, e.g., Zebrowitz and McDonald, 1991;Marsh et al., 2005;Zebrowitz et al., 2007). Structural resemblance to a specific expression on a non-expressive (i.e., neutral) face powerfully influences trait impressions of others. ...
Previous research has demonstrated how emotion resembling cues in the face help shape impression formation (i. e., emotion overgeneralization). Perhaps most notable in the literature to date, has been work suggesting that gender-related appearance cues are visually confounded with certain stereotypic expressive cues (see Adams et al., 2015 for review). Only a couple studies to date have used computer vision to directly map out and test facial structural resemblance to emotion expressions using facial landmark coordinates to estimate face shape. In one study using a Bayesian network classifier trained to detect emotional expressions structural resemblance to a specific expression on a non-expressive (i.e., neutral) face was found to influence trait impressions of others (Said et al., 2009 ). In another study, a connectionist model trained to detect emotional expressions found different emotion-resembling cues in male vs. female faces (Zebrowitz et al., 2010 ). Despite this seminal work, direct evidence confirming the theoretical assertion that humans likewise utilize these emotion-resembling cues when forming impressions has been lacking. Across four studies, we replicate and extend these prior findings using new advances in computer vision to examine gender-related, emotion-resembling structure, color, and texture (as well as their weighted combination) and their impact on gender-stereotypic impression formation. We show that all three (plus their combination) are meaningfully related to human impressions of emotionally neutral faces. Further when applying the computer vision algorithms to experimentally manipulate faces, we show that humans derive similar impressions from them as did the computer.
... Unfortunately, it seems to be enough for the interference to significantly affect a number of key decisions regarding trait inferencing. [32][33][34] The overgeneralisation effect may also occur when one is exposed to an unfamiliar object or an object presented in an unattractive way. 35 For the students in our study, the child with CFM shown in the picture was not only unknown but also unattractive -unlike to the parents/carers who perceived their child as familiar and who contributed to their image (e.g. ...
Background:
The study uses the Overgeneralisation Effect Scale (OES) developed by K. Milska and A. Mański to estimate the overgeneralisation effect in trait inferencing about children with craniofacial anomalies, which involved university students (future health professionals) and relatives of children with craniofacial microsomia (CFM). The practical purpose of the study was to provide evidence supporting the benefits of using the OES to improve the outcomes of child rehabilitation.
Methods:
The OES (Polish: Skala Efektu Nadgeneralizacji) was administered to a group of 843 university students of medical/caring professions and 26 parents/guardians of children with craniofacial anomalies. The responses of 757 subjects were included in the analysis.
Results:
Different trait profiles of a child with CFM were obtained. The carer appraisal of their child tended to be very positive across all items. The student appraisals were definitely less positive and more varied. A range of factors which may affect trait impression leading to overgeneralisation in trait inferencing about a child with CFM have been identified, including familiarity with the child, craniofacial anomaly suggestive of more severe disability, emotional expression and the relationship to the child.
Conclusion:
The behaviour of the carers and professionals towards children with CFM undergoing diagnostic assessment, treatment and rehabilitation is determined by how each of them perceives the child. The presence of anomaly increases the likelihood of overgeneralisation effect both in carers and professionals. The OES may be one of the instruments to detect/measure these differences to improve the outcomes of child rehabilitation.
... Under the communal norm, consumers make inferences regarding the warmth of the brand. Consistent with the baby-face schema(Berry and Brownlow, 1989;Zebrowitz, 1997;Zebrowitz and McDonald, 1991), a cute anthropomorphized spokescharacter enhances warmth inferences that are congruent with the communal norm. Nonassertive language also fits consumer expectations regarding the communal relationship. ...
This study focuses on anthropomorphized spokescharacters, classifying them into cute or mature looks. The authors performed three studies to investigate how these two types of anthropomorphized spokescharacters affect consumer perceptions and judgments. Studies 1 and 2 examined advertising language (assertive versus nonassertive) and relationship norm (communal versus exchange) as boundary conditions. Study 3 shows how consumer persuasion knowledge (i.e., suspicions about a company’s intention to persuade) affects the downstream impact of the cute character, especially under the communal norm. The results provide marketers with insights and cautions regarding how to choose between a cute or a mature anthropomorphized spokescharacter.
... Prior research suggests that there are some physical features that influence juror decisionmaking that were not considered in the current research design, such as attractiveness (D. J. Devine et al., 2001;Johnson & King, 2017;MacCoun, 1990;Sigall & Ostrove, 1975;Stewart, 1980) and baby-faced appearance (Berry & McArthur, 1986;Montepare & Zebrowitz, 1998;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). Although the manipulations were pilot tested individually, the images were not pilot tested after editing the tattoo images onto the necks. ...
Stereotypes and prejudice have been shown to bias information processing and decision-making. There are physical traits that are stereotypically associated with criminals (i.e. tattoos, dark skin-tone, facial untrustworthiness) and have been shown to influence juror decision-making. The current research aimed to investigate the effects of tattoos, facial trustworthiness and skin tone on juror case judgments and criminal appearance ratings, while also investigating and accounting for prejudice and motivation to respond without prejudice. Participants (n = 426) were asked to act as mock jurors in a hypothetical assault case by making case judgments and responding to appearance and attitude measures. Criminal appearance ratings indirectly mediated the relationship between physical traits and verdict decisions. Additionally, a significant interaction emerged between skin tone and racial prejudice on criminal appearance ratings, suggesting that the effects of physical traits may depend on individual attitudes. Implications and future directions are discussed.
... Moreover, in mock litigation cases, attractive plaintiffs are more likely to be successful and are awarded more money in damages (Kulka & Kessler, 1978). In real courtrooms, there is evidence that both attractiveness and baby-facedness can increase the likelihood of success for individuals involved in small claims court litigation cases (Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). Moreover, observational studies suggest that attractiveness can influence the severity of sentencing in real criminal cases (Stewart, 1980(Stewart, , 1985. ...
... Importantly, research also shows that adults with the neotenous features of infants stimulate patterns of neural activation comparable to their younger counterparts [19] and, independent of their attractiveness, are also rated to be more childlike (more naïve and submissive, less strong, dominant and competent) than their peers [20,21]. Examples evidencing the real world impact of such attributional biases include the findings that neotenous faces are more likely to receive help and cue social approach (as evidenced through the returning, or otherwise, of 'lost', posted résumés) in both white and black females and white (but not black) males [22], that others rate greater motivation to take care of them [23], that the facial appearance of litigants' and plaintiffs affects judicial decisions (such that baby-faced defendants were more likely to win cases involving intentional actions and baby-faced plaintiffs received larger monetary rewards; [24]), and that females are more likely to express positive adoption attitudes towards baby faced infants [25]. ...
... Merely looking at another person, people spontaneously form impressions about fundamental personality characteristics such as trustworthiness, competence, and attractiveness (Asch, 1946;Kleisner et al., 2013;Linke, Saribay, & Kleisner, 2016;Todorov et al., 2015). Such snap judgments have been shown to influence real-world decisions in many contexts, including political voting, sentencing, leadership, or online dating (Brooks et al., 2014;Eberhardt et al., 2006;Olivola et al., 2014;Todorov et al., 2005;Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991). ...
... The face plays an important role in decision-making processes in various contexts, including politics (e.g., Todorov et al. 2005), law and justice (e.g., Zebrowitz and McDonald 1991), leadership (e.g., Rule and Ambady 2008), the labor market (e.g., Bóo, Rossi, and Urzúa 2013;Ruffle and Shtudiner 2014), and marketing (e.g., DeShields, Kara, and Kaynak 1996;Kahle and Homer 1985;Keh et al. 2013;Valentine et al. 2014;Xiao and Ding 2014). In the social networking era, the amount of facial information available online has increased dramatically. ...
Consumers and marketers use facial information to make important inferences about others in many business contexts. However, consumers and firms are increasingly concerned about privacy and discrimination. To address privacy–perception trade-offs, the authors propose a novel contour-as-face (CaF) framework that transforms face images into contour images incorporating both the nonoutline and outline features of facial parts. In three empirical studies, the authors (1) compare human perceptions of face and contour images along 15 dimensions commonly assessed in marketing contexts; (2) investigate the effectiveness of contour images for protecting anonymity related to identity, age, and gender; and (3) implement the CaF framework in a real-life online dating context. Results show that the CaF framework effectively resolves privacy–perception trade-off problems by preserving the information that is useful for humans to make inferences about many relevant perceptual dimensions in marketing while making it virtually impossible for humans to infer identity and very difficult to infer age and gender accurately—two critical discrimination factors. Results from the field implementation demonstrate the feasibility and value of using the CaF framework for real-life decision making.
... Our present concern is with the possibility that information revealed in the faces of physicians might trigger stereotypes that may have negative consequences in terms of patients' behavior. Ample research indicates that first-impression information can influence perceivers' behaviors, based on (for example) having lower physical attractiveness (Snyder et al. 1977;Zebrowitz and McDonald 1991); having appearance of less trustworthiness (Charlesworth et al. 2019;Todorov et al. 2005); looking older (controlling for actual age) or, alternatively, for having a babyface (Kaufmann et al. 2016;Zebrowitz and Lee 1999); and being an outgroup member (Denrell 2005;Maddox and Dukes 2008). ...
People often make inferences about others from the physical appearance and social group characteristics revealed through their photographs. Because physicians’ photographs are routinely displayed to prospective patients in websites, print media, and direct mail, it is possible that this practice triggers conscious or unconscious biases in potential patients. We investigated first impressions of physicians based on seeing their photographs. In two studies (Study 1 N = 59; Study 2 N = 99), we used an experimentally composed set of physician photographs that varied their gender, age, nationality (USA vs. India), and smiling; their physical attractiveness was also measured. Analogue patients rated the physicians’ patient centeredness, technical competence, and their desire to see the physician again. For patient centeredness, the data revealed bias against older (especially if older and male), Indian, less attractive, and non-smiling physicians, and for competence there was bias against younger physicians (especially if younger and female). For desire to see the physician again, the bias was against Indian, less attractive, and non-smiling physicians. These biases may impact how patients select physicians and may persist to shape their interactions with them.
... Humans rapidly and automatically attribute a wide range of traits to others based on their faces (11,54,(71)(72)(73)(74). These attributions are pervasive and consequential in everyday life (28)(29)(30)(31)(75)(76)(77)(78)(79)(80)(81). Although we use a large number of different words for these attributions (Fig. S1A) [see also (8,9)], it has long been thought that the psychological space describing attributions from faces is in fact quite low-dimensional. ...
How do people form impressions of others based on faces? Existing psychological theories argue that people attribute traits to others from faces along two or three dimensions. While these theories have now been incorporated into numerous empirical and theoretical studies, they were derived from a small set of trait attributions, which limits their generalizability and leaves the true nature of the psychological dimensions unclear. The present study applied deep neural networks to representatively sample an inclusive list of traits and faces, generating a comprehensive set of 100 traits and 100 faces that we administered in two large-scale preregistered studies. These comprehensive trait attributions (Study 1, 750,000 ratings) revealed a novel four-dimensional space: warmth, competence, female-stereotype, and youth-stereotype, challenging existing theories. Study 2 collecting dense individual-level data in seven different countries (2,100,000 trials) reproduced this four-dimensional space across cultures and in individual participants. These findings, together with test-retest reliability of all trait attributions and direct comparisons with existing theories, provide a new, most comprehensive characterization of trait attributions from faces.
Introduction:
First impressions can influence interpersonal relationships for extended periods, with negative first impressions leading to more negative judgments and behaviors between individuals months after their initial meeting. Although common factors such as therapeutic alliance (TA) are well studied, less is known of the potential influence of a therapist's first impression of their client's motivation on TA and drinking outcomes. Based on data from a prospective study of the perceptions of the TA among clients receiving cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT), this study examined how therapists' first impressions may moderate the relationship between client-rated TA and drinking outcomes during treatment.
Methods:
One hundred fifty-four adults participated in a 12-week course of CBT and completed measures of TA and drinking behaviors following each treatment session. Additionally, therapists completed a measure of their first impression of their client's motivation for treatment following the first session.
Results:
Time-lagged multilevel modeling revealed a significant within-person TA by therapists' first impression interaction that predicted percent days abstinent (PDA). Specifically, among participants rated as lower on first impressions of treatment motivation, higher within-person TA predicted greater PDA in the interval prior to the next treatment session. Within-person working alliance was not associated with PDA among individuals rated higher on first impressions of treatment motivation who demonstrated higher PDA throughout treatment. Furthermore, significant between-person TA by first impressions interactions were found for both PDA and drinks per drinking day (DDD), such that among individuals with lower treatment motivation, TA positively predicted PDA and negatively predicted DDD.
Conclusion:
Although therapists' first impressions of a client's treatment motivation are positively associated with treatment outcomes, clients' perception of the TA may mitigate the impact of poor first impressions. These findings highlight the need for additional nuanced examinations of the relationship between TA and treatment outcomes, emphasizing the contextual factors that influence this relationship.
In der Attraktivitätsforschung gilt die sogenannte „Durchschnitts-Hypothese“ als die wichtigste Theorie zur Erklärung von Gesichter-Attraktivität. Hochattraktive Gesichter, die deutlich vom mathematischen Durchschnitt einer Population abweichen, werden hingegen typischerweise als statistische Ausreißer abgetan. In diesem Kapitel wird genau diesen vermeintlichen „Ausreißern“ systematisch nachgegangen. Dazu werden in einer qualitativen Untersuchung gemorphte Gesichter aus den attraktivsten Einzelgesichtern verschiedener Stichproben (Männer- und Frauengesichter in der Frontal- und Profilansicht) mit den jeweiligen Gesamt-Durchschnittsgesichtern systematisch verglichen und Merkmalsunterschiede beschrieben. Die analysierten Unterschiede stehen im Widerspruch zur Durchschnitts-Hypothese und unterstreichen die Bedeutung der Globalfaktoren „Jugendlichkeit“ und „geschlechtstypisches Aussehen“ für Attraktivität.
The advent of transplantation of visible organs, including face and hand, has provided novel opportunities to examine models of body image and body schema compared to “invisible” organ transplantation. While body image refers to the multidimensional concept derived from an individual’s self-concept and societal perception, body schema is the individual’s awareness of the shape and position of the trunk and limbs in space. Both concepts, in addition to other environmental and psychosocial factors, influence a facial transplant recipient’s adjustment to the new organ, adherence with postoperative care, and quality of life. Screening tools have been utilized to detect psychosocial stressors but none are validated in facial transplantation. Gaining a better understanding of body image in facial transplantation can facilitate improved identification of patients at high risk of psychosocial problems pre- and post-transplant and guide future development for intervention strategies.
Purpose
This study aims to test the possible correlation between the letter height-to-width ratio and consumers’ perception of cuteness.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the design of three groups of experimental questionnaires, this paper carried out experiments on subjects with different professional backgrounds.
Findings
The result shows that perceived cuteness is only beneficial for consumers who adopt communal relationship (rather than exchange relationship) with the brand. Compared to consumers who adopt communal relationship with brands, letters of lower height-to-width ratio are perceived as cuter and thus more preferable than thinner ones, whereas for consumers who adopt exchange relationship with brands, thinner letters are preferred.
Research limitations/implications
To rule out interference, this study focuses only on the height-to-width ratio of the letters. In the future, researchers can pay more attention to the mobility of brand relationships, consumers’ reading strategy and logos’ visual elements that influence consumers’ brand perception (besides height-to-width ratio).
Practical implications
The research reminds scholars that the height-to-width ratio of letters/logos is not only of aesthetic value but also imposes a great impact on consumer perception. And the result of this research explains the contradiction in consumers’ preference for wide vs thin letter shapes and provides evidence for the interaction between brand relationship norms and letter preferences.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to explore the influence of letter height-to-width ratio in marketing.
Recent work has shown that people can update their implicit evaluations based on facial trustworthiness. However, do these updated implicit evaluations map onto subsequent decisions? We examined whether implicit evaluations based on faces but updated in light of new behavioral evidence uniquely predict responses in the trust game. Across six studies ( N = 2,059), we measured participants’ initial implicit evaluations of a target based on the target’s face and then their updated implicit evaluations based on newly learned behavioral evidence. We then tested whether these updated implicit evaluations uniquely predicted (i.e., beyond explicit evaluations) responses in a hypothetical trust game. Although participants consistently based their initial evaluations on the face and updated their evaluations after learning new diagnostic information, their updated implicit evaluations did not uniquely predict their responses in the trust game. We discuss theoretical considerations in this article.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of a salesperson’s babyface in his/her profile picture on the number of online reviews the salesperson receives. In addition to testing the direct relationship, this study explores the moderating roles of salesperson gender and consumer involvement.
Design/methodology/approach
Responding to the call for field-based consumer research, the authors test their theory using an experimental design and a field study. Study 1 employs an experimental design in high and low involvement service settings to test the effect of a babyface on consumers’ intention to write online reviews. Study 2 uses field data, utilising real estate salespeople’s online profile pictures to test the effect of salespeople’s babyface on the number of online reviews they receive. It does so by using an artificial intelligence facial recognition application interface.
Findings
A salesperson’s babyface results in fewer online reviews in situations in which consumers are highly involved in the purchase process. By contrast, a salesperson’s babyface engenders more online reviews when consumers purchase low involvement services. The adverse effect of a babyface on the number of online reviews, however, attenuates when a salesperson is female.
Research limitations/implications
Limited information about salespeople, a skewed number of online reviews and blurry online profile pictures from a real-world data set constitute the study’s limitations.
Practical implications
When consumers are highly involved in the purchase process, salespeople should appear mature in their online profile photos to engender more online reviews. However, salespeople providing low involvement services should opt for online profile pictures reflecting babyish facial features to generate more online reviews.
Originality/value
Research has shown that salespeople’s physical appearance plays an important role in consumers’ perceptions of salespeople and their performance. Although abundant research and practice have shown the importance of online reviews, less is known about how online profile pictures affect online reviews. Thus, building on well-studied cases of an overgeneralization effect, this work examines the extent to which salespeople’s babyface features in their online profile picture affects the number of online reviews received in a real-world setting.
Faces are visual stimuli that convey rich social information. Previous experiments found better recognition for faces that were evaluated based on their social traits than on their perceptual features during encoding. Here, we ask whether this social‐encoding benefit in face recognition is also found for categories of faces that we have no previous social experience with, such as other‐race faces. To answer this question, we first explored whether social and perceptual evaluations for other‐race faces are consistent and valid. We then asked whether social evaluations during encoding improve recognition for other‐race faces. Results show that social and perceptual evaluations of own‐ and other‐race faces were valid. We also found high agreement in social and perceptual evaluations across individuals from different races. This indicates that evaluations of other‐race faces are not random but meaningful. Furthermore, we found that social evaluations facilitated face recognition regardless of race, demonstrating a social‐encoding benefit for both own‐ and other‐race faces. Our findings highlight the role of social information in face recognition and show how it can be used to improve recognition of categories of faces that are hard to recognize due to lack of experience with them.
People form first impressions of others and may make judgments about their social traits and character on the basis of facial perceptions. We implement a controlled laboratory experiment to investigate whether people can glean information about another person's other-regarding preferences from uncropped photographs of their face. To do so, we conduct a dictator game with an allocator and a recipient, and then present pairs of allocator photos to observers. Each pair portrays one relatively generous allocator and another who has demonstrated less generosity. The experimental results show that the observers cannot accurately recognize more generous allocators, but instead make systematic errors. In particular, the observers believe that allocators who are rated more attractive by others are more generous, despite there being no actual relationship between physical attractiveness and generosity.
Using machine learning–based algorithms, we measure key impressions about sell‐side analysts using their LinkedIn photos. We find that impressions of analysts’ trustworthiness (TRUST) and dominance (DOM) are positively associated with forecast accuracy, especially after recent in‐person meetings between analysts and firm managers. High TRUST also enhances stock return sensitivity to forecast revisions, especially for stocks with high institutional ownership. In contrast, the impression of analysts’ attractiveness (ATTRACT) is only positively associated with accuracy for new analysts or when a firm has a new CEO or CFO. Furthermore, while high DOM helps male analysts’ chances of attaining All‐Star status, it reduces female analysts’ accuracy and the likelihood of winning the All‐Star award. In addition, the relation between TRUST and accuracy is modulated by the disclosure environment and is attenuated by Regulation Fair Disclosure. Our results suggest that face impressions influence analysts’ access to information and the perceived credibility of their reports. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
This paper investigates whether different shades of red clothes increase women’s perceived attractiveness to men and women in digital photographs. We also examined whether there was any variance in perceived attraction according to the color shade of clothes due to personal physical color traits based on Personal Color Analysis System. Participants evaluated a woman’s attractiveness presented in a photograph featuring different skin and hair colors and t-shirts in four red shades. The results indicate that the four different red shades—low chroma/high value, low chroma/medium value, high chroma/medium value, and low chroma/low value—examined in this study can enhance female attractiveness on a digital photo. Significantly, the high chroma and medium value—often considered vivid—red had a greater appeal to males and females in most skin and hair color types. This study is the first to investigate the perceived attractiveness of Asians wearing red in the context of digital photographs. The findings give insight to people and marketers with a better understanding perceived attractiveness of red clothing in digital photos. Additionally, this study confirms that the value and chroma of color, which was overlooked in previous research, should be considered as variables in studies of clothing color meanings.
Over half of British Members of Parliament (MPs) were found to have overclaimed on their expenses in the 2009 expenses scandal. We conducted an exploratory analysis of whether the facial appearance of the MPs (N = 636) is associated with overclaiming, as research has found that facial appearance is correlated with behavioural outcomes. Participants (N = 4,727) previously unfamiliar with the MPs made trait ratings (physically attractive, charismatic, criminal, competent, financially greedy, honest, likeable, organised, physically dominant, and sincere) of each politician’s face. The latent factor structure indicated the traits could be grouped into the three broad factors identified in previous work: criminality (the traits criminal, financially greedy, and physically dominant), attractiveness (the traits physically attractive, charismatic, honest, likeable, and sincere), and competence (competent and organised). We found more attractive MPs tended to overclaim less, as did more criminal-looking MPs. But more competent-appearing politicians tended to overclaim more. We relate these findings to theories of moral licensing and moral consistency and discuss the limitations and context-specific nature of our findings.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of sexual objectification on the attribution processes of the guilt of a defendant – and also on the level of guilt. It was also hypothesized that legal expertise could be a protective factor in countering the influence of sexual objectification.
Design/methodology/approach
Sexual objectification can be defined as the perspective in which a person is evaluated solely in terms of his or her body parts or sexual function. As yet, no studies have assessed the influence of sexual objectification on guilt assessment in the legal system; this paper aims to explore whether sexual objectification has an influence on the attribution processes of a defendant's guilt.
Findings
The statistical analysis revealed that the sexually objectified defendant received a guilty verdict more often than a non-sexually objectified defendant; additionally, legal experts were more likely to identify the defendant as not guilty than non-legal experts. The findings support the hypothesis that sexual objectification is indeed one of the common stereotypes that lead to discrimination.
Originality/value
The present study provides novel findings regarding sexual objectification in the forensic context in which the defendant is viewed and evaluated.
This book focuses on the growing body of empirical research investigating the cognition of musical multimedia, with an emphasis on temporally organized auditory and visual structures. ‘Multimedia’ commonly refers to audiovisual presentations in film, television, video, interactive gaming, computer interfaces, and on the Internet. The term ‘empirical’ refers to the process of collecting data from human participants via systematically designed experiments. Such empirical research provides a framework for understanding the relationships between music, sound, and image in multimedia contexts. The international collection of contributors represents eight countries and a range of disciplines including psychology, neuroscience, musicology, media studies, film, and communications. Each chapter includes a comprehensive review of the topic and, where appropriate, identifies models that can be empirically tested. Part I presents contrasting theoretical approaches from cognitive psychology, philosophy, semiotics, communications, musicology, and neuroscience. Part II reviews research on the structural aspects of music and multimedia, while Part III focuses on research related to the influence of music on perceived meaning in the multimedia experience. Part IV explores empirical findings on a variety of real-world applications of music in multimedia including entertainment and educational media for children, video and computer games, television and online advertising, auditory displays of information, and the impact of surround sound, showing how theory and practice intertwine in various examples of multimedia. Part V includes a final chapter that consolidates emergent themes and concludes with the value of broadening the scope of research to encompass multisensory, multidisciplinary, and cross-cultural perspectives to advance our understanding of the role of music in multimedia.
Many studies have examined how defendant characteristics influence jury decisions, but none have investigated the effect of cosmetics. We therefore examined how cosmetics influence jury decisions for young and middle-aged female defendants. In Study 1, participants were more likely to assign guilty verdicts to middle-aged defendants than young defendants and when presented with cosmetics, male participants gave young defendants longer sentences and middle-aged defendants shorter sentences. In Study 2, however, we did not replicate the age or the cosmetics effects on jury sentences, suggesting that comparisons between defendants may have influenced jury decisions in Study 1. Further work is thus still needed, but our two well-powered studies (N = 1127) provide a first exploration into the influence of cosmetics on jury decisions.
From only a single spoken word, listeners can form a wealth of first impressions of a person’s character traits and personality based on their voice. However, due to the substantial within‐person variability in voices, these trait judgements are likely to be highly stimulus‐dependent for unfamiliar voices: The same person may sound very trustworthy in one recording but less trustworthy in another. How trait judgements differ when listeners are familiar with a voice is unclear: Are listeners who are familiar with the voices as susceptible to the effects of within‐person variability? Does the semantic knowledge listeners have about a familiar person influence their judgements? In the current study, we tested the effect of familiarity on listeners’ trait judgements from variable voices across 3 experiments. Using a between‐subjects design, we contrasted trait judgements by listeners who were familiar with a set of voices – either through laboratory‐based training or through watching a TV show – with listeners who were unfamiliar with the voices. We predicted that familiarity with the voices would reduce variability in trait judgements for variable voice recordings from the same identity (cf. Mileva, Kramer & Burton, Perception, 48, 471 and 2019, for faces). However, across the 3 studies and two types of measures to assess variability, we found no compelling evidence to suggest that trait impressions were systematically affected by familiarity.
Citizens encounter many street‐level bureaucrats in their lifetime. How do they assess the traits of the bureaucrats they meet? Understanding citizens’ assessments of bureaucrats is important, because citizens are not passive receivers of policies. This article explores citizens’ classifications of street‐level bureaucrats based on their core task. Using a factorial survey (n = 580), three clusters of bureaucrats are identified: those who are regulation oriented, those who are service oriented, and those who are both regulation and service oriented. Then, the article tests how these three types of bureaucrats are assessed on warmth and competence and whether their gender matters. A between‐subjects experiment (n = 1,602) reveals that regulation‐oriented bureaucrats are assessed as least competent and warm. Moreover, regardless of core task, female bureaucrats are assessed as warmer than males. Female and male bureaucrats are assessed as equally competent. This article shows that bureaucrats are stereotyped by citizens and discusses the implications for the public management literature.
Evidence for Practice
• While researchers and practitioners tend to focus on commonalities between street‐level bureaucrats, focusing on differences—for instance, in terms of core task and gender—may be helpful to understand how citizens see and react to their encounters with bureaucrats.
• Much like street‐level bureaucrats’ stereotypical notions of citizens, citizens stereotype the bureaucrats they encounter. These stereotypes are based on cues related to the bureaucrats’ core task and gender.
• Especially for regulation‐oriented organizations and street‐level bureaucrats, such as inspectorates, being aware of stereotypes may be useful when engaging with citizens because they are rated as the least competent and warm.
Prior work has often shown higher memory for impressions of valenced verbal cues when such valence is congruent with valence conveyed by actors’ facial characteristics. The current work examined specific valence contributions to appearance-congruent memory advantages. Untrustworthy and trustworthy faces were paired with positive, negative, and neutral behaviours (Study 1) and traits (Study 2). Negative versus positive trust-related behaviours are more highly diagnostic and weigh more heavily into impressions, suggesting that impressions of negative behaviours should also be more memorable. Consistent with this possibility, an appearance-congruity advantage for memory of impressions formed from behaviours was larger for untrustworthy versus trustworthy faces after correcting for appearance-congruent response biases (Study 1). When forming impressions from traits, verbal cues less contextualised than behaviours, a larger appearance-congruity advantage in impression memory for untrustworthy versus trustworthy faces could be attributed to appearance-congruent responding (Study 2). Across studies, more extremely valenced impressions were better remembered than more neutral impressions regardless of facial trustworthiness. True appearance-congruity advantages in impression memory may thus be larger for untrustworthy faces when verbal cues can be more contextualised. Further, forming impressions of more extremely valenced verbal cues may enhance impression memory regardless of whether cues are incongruent with facial characteristics.
The present research examined if the impact of a babyface on trait impressions documented in previous research holds true for moving faces. It also assessed the relative impact of a babyface and a childlike voice on impressions of talking faces. To achieve these goals, male and female targets'' traits as well as their facial and vocal characteristics were rated in one of four information conditions: Static Face, Moving Face, Voice Only, or Talking Face. Facial structure measurements were also made by two independent judges. Data for male faces supported the experimental hypotheses. Specifically, regression analyses revealed that although a babyish facial structure created the impression of weakness even when a target moved his face, this effect was diminished when he also talked. Here a childlike voice and dynamic babyishness, as assessed by moving face ratings, were more important predictors. Similarly, a babyish facial structure had less impact on impressions of a talking target''s warmth than did dynamic babyishness or other facial movement. A childlike voice had no impact on impressions of warmth when facial information was available.
Physical attractiveness of a traffic offender was varied along with the nature of the street accident. Punishment as a main dependent measure was realized in terms of imprisonment. Results for 44 female and 46 male undergraduates were inconsistent with additive and averaging models of information integration. An averaging model with differential weights could not give a consistent account of the effects. An attractive offender received more lenient treatment than an unattractive both involved in an identical accident. Having committed a fatal accident, physical attractiveness appears to have a negative influence on the over-all judgment.
This chapter discusses physical attractiveness in social interactions. Physical attractiveness is, in many ways, a homely variable. The physical attractiveness variable is unpretentious for at least two reasons. First, it is unlikely that it will be found to be orthogonal to other dimensions, primarily intelligence, socioeconomic status, and perhaps genetically determined behavioral predispositions associated with morphological characteristics. Second, it seems highly unlikely that physical attractiveness will ever form the core concept of a psychological theory, even a much needed social perceptual theory, which will illuminate the way to useful and interesting predictions about social relationships. The chapter focuses on recent social psychological evidence, which suggests that even esthetic attractiveness may be a useful dimension for understanding certain social phenomena, and, perhaps, for illuminating some personality and developmental puzzles as well. Perception of the physical attractiveness level of another appears to be influenceable by the affective and experiential relationship between the evaluator and the person whose physical attractiveness level is to be judged, as well as by factors unique to the evaluator and the setting in which evaluations are made, although none of these factors have been the subject of much study. The impact of physical attractiveness upon the individual has been highlighted in the chapter.
-The present study examined the relationship between the defendants' physical attractiveness and assigned length of sentencing. Two independent samples of 96 subjccts each (24 white males, 24 white females, 24 black males, and 24 black females) were used, one for assigning sentences (in years and months) and one for rating physical attractiveness (on a 1-7 scale). The defendants were G white males, 6 white females, 6 black males, and 6 black females. An over-all significant negative correlation of -.42 (df = 22, p < .05) was found.
Facial features that distinguish human infants were manipulated in schematic adult faces to test the hypothesis that impressions of babies are generalized to adults who in some way resemble babies. The results revealed that large eyes, low vertical placement of features, and short features, either singly or in combination, served to decrease perceivers' impressions of a stimulus person's physical strength, social dominance, and intellectual astuteness. These effects were independent of the perceived age and attractiveness of the faces; this was evidenced by partial correlation analyses, as well as by the finding that babyish features typically had the same impact on impressions of female and male faces, even though they increased the rated attractiveness of the female faces and decreased the rated attractiveness of the male faces. The results are discussed within a theoretical framework that emphasizes the importance of determining what stimulus information in people's appearance and demeanor influences i...
The possibility that a jury would stereotype a defendant on the basis of his or her physical characteristics raises a constitutional question concerning the accused's right to a fair trial. If stereotyping has a significant effect on guilt determinations, then criminal procedure will have to make adjustments in such cases to ensure that the defendant receives a fair trial. This Comment will examine what judicial recognition of the prejudicial effects of appearance already exist or may be developed and how this acknowledgment might be handled procedurally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Both an opinion survey and an experimental study were conducted. The survey revealed that substantial majorities of those polled believed (a) that a defendant's character and previous history should influence jurors' decision (79%) and (b) that the defendant's physical appearance should not bias these decisions (93%). The hypothesis, derived from a reinforcement model of interpersonal attraction and previous research on physical appearance, was that attractive defendants would be more positively evaluated than unattractive ones despite the seeming irrelevance of appearance to judicial decisions. The results of a simulated jury task were that physically attractive defendants were evaluated with less certainty of guilt (p < .05), less severe recommended punishment (p < .005), and greater attraction (p < .005), than were unattractive defendants. The importance of independent affective and cognitive components of the attraction process were emphasized.
This article develops the notion that law tends to be policy analysis without benefit of data. It discusses the difficulties the law creates for itself and society due to this tendency, as well as the prospects for better informing the law through data, especially empirical evaluation of the law's effects. The article provides as illustrations (a) insanity defense "reform," (b) legislation to solve the "liability crisis," (c) sentencing guidelines, (d) the federal rules of civil procedure, and (e) lexogenic injuries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Observers rated the physical attractiveness of 74 defendants in criminal court, covering a broad range of offenses. Seventy-three usable cases were obtained. For 67 defendants (excluding those who had drawn “flat sentences” of 99–199 years), attractiveness was predictive of both minimum and maximum sentences (p <.001)-the more attractive the defendant, the less severe the sentence imposed. No significant relationship was found between attractiveness and conviction/acquittal, although seriousness of the crime was found to correlate negatively with attractiveness (p <.01)).
Race of the defendant showed a systematic relationship to punishment, with nonwhites drawing consistently more severe sentences than whites; a multiple regression analysis using attractiveness, race, and seriousness of crime as predictors of punishment yielded results which implied that this finding was largely due to a confounding of race and seriousness of the crime.
In an experimental study, mock jurors heard a 50-minute audiotape of a rape trial and saw pictures of the victim and defendant. The factors in the design were sex of the defense attorney, age of the victim (early 20s or 60s), attractiveness of the victim, and sex of the juror. The most striking finding was a higher acquittal rate under the female defense attorney condition (71%) than under the male defense attorney condition (49%). This may be an instance of the recently described talking platypus phenomenon. Main effects for juror's sex, age of the victim, and attractiveness of the victim were not significant, but these factors showed complex interactions. Internal-external scores did not predict decisions. The most frequent reasons given for acquittals were reasonable doubt and the victim's not resisting.
In this paper disputes are seen as varying along a dimension of admitted liability, that is, the extent to which defendants admit some obligation to plaintiffs; they may admit no liability, partial liability, or full liability. This conceptualization was used in an empirical study of a small claims court. The results paint a portrait of the court that is at variance with most of the previous literature. Consumer issues constitute a substantial portion of the court caseload. On average, defendants, including individual consumers, do well when they dispute claims. Among disputed cases, small rather than large businesses predominate. Prior literature has suggested that, in comparison to adjudication, mediation of claims produces compromise outcomes and higher rates of compliance. This research shows that mediation yields a large percentage of all-or-none results, but to the extent that there is compromise and compliance, it can be partly ascribed to admitted liability characteristics. Some data on defaulted cases are also presented.