Effects of Gender and Personality on First Impression

Valuing Outpatients' Perspective on Primary Health Care Services in Greece: A Cross-Sectional Survey on Satisfaction and Personal-Centered Care

INTRODUCTION

The aims of the study were to identify and analyze the determinants associated with outpatient satisfaction in Greek primary care. This is because there is a general consensus that primary care is the linchpin of effective person-centered care delivery.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 1012 patients' exit interviews; sociodemographic variables were included in the questionnaire to obtain data on the satisfaction of primary care users with 20 public primary healthcare centers in Athens between June 2019 and April 2021. Statistical analysis was applied to 55 items and eight dimensions of patient satisfaction, namely, arrival and admission, waiting before the appointment, cleanliness of toilets, medical examination and behavior of physician, behavior of nursing staff, laboratories, departure, and contribution of the PHCs. Descriptive analyses and multiple linear regression were used to analyze the factors influencing patient satisfaction through coefficients (β) with 95% confidence intervals and associated tests of statistical significance.

RESULTS

Τwo-thirds (74.21%) of this survey's participants ranged from 45 to 74 years of age. More than half of the participants were women (62.15%). The most common reasons for visits were pathological (26.48%), followed by cardiological conditions (9.78%), orthopedics (9.49%), gynecologic conditions (8.70%), and ophthalmologic problems (7.31%). In the center of satisfaction with primary care was the medical care and the behavior of the physician (β = 0.427; p < 0.01), followed by the time during appointment (β = 0.390; p < 0.01). Dimensions like "accessibility and availability, 2.19/5"; "waiting times, 2.89/5"; "infrastructure of facilities (2.04/5) and cleanliness of them, (2/5)"; "laboratories, 2.99/5" and "bureaucracy in the departure, 2.29/5" were crucial for the trust and satisfaction of patients. Overall satisfaction was rated at a moderate level (2.62 ± 0.18) while person-centered care was rated as weak (2.49 ± 0.28).

CONCLUSIONS

Greece is recommended to increase the sensitivity of the use of the primary health care system by patients as a first contact, continuous, comprehensive, and effective patient- and family-focused care.

The impact of the use of masks on trait judgments and face recognition

Although effective in reducing virus transmission, face masks might compromise face recognition and trait judgments. With this study, we aimed to observe the influence of masks on face recognition and trait judgments-more specifically, in trustworthiness, dominance, and distinctiveness judgments. Also, we wanted to observe the possible influence of trait judgments on facial recognition for masked and unmasked faces, which has never been done before. For that, we conducted an online study where 140 participants observed and made trait judgments of masked and unmasked faces in a within-subjects design. After a distractive task, participants performed a recognition memory test. As expected, we observed a better recognition of faces shown without a mask during the study phase, which allowed the holistic processing of the faces. The worst performance was found for faces encoded with a mask but tested without it, occurring simultaneity disruption in holistic face processing and the violation of the encoding specificity principle. Regarding the trait judgments, unmasked faces were considered more distinctive, and masked faces were considered more trustworthy. More interestingly, we can conclude that facial distinctiveness predicts face recognition, regardless of mask use. In contrast, dominance judgments only predicted face recognition when faces were presented without a mask. When faces were exposed with masks, trustworthiness overrides dominance, becoming more critical to recognizing faces. We can interpret these results from an evolutionary perspective.

Perception of threat and intent to harm from vocal and facial cues

What constitutes a "threatening tone of voice"? There is currently little research exploring how listeners infer threat, or the intention to cause harm, from speakers' voices. Here, we investigated the influence of key linguistic variables on these evaluations (Study 1). Results showed a trend for voices perceived to be lower in pitch, particularly those of male speakers, to be evaluated as sounding more threatening and conveying greater intent to harm. We next investigated the evaluation of multimodal stimuli comprising voices and faces varying in perceived dominance (Study 2). Visual information about the speaker's face had a significant effect on threat and intent ratings. In both experiments, we observed a relatively low level of agreement among individual listeners' evaluations, emphasising idiosyncrasy in the ways in which threat and intent-to-harm are perceived. This research provides a basis for the perceptual experience of a "threatening tone of voice," along with an exploration of vocal and facial cue integration in social evaluation.

Virtual first impressions: Zoom backgrounds affect judgements of trust and competence

Trait inferences from first impressions are drawn rapidly and spontaneously. However, the Covid-19 pandemic forced interactions online introducing differential influential factors on first impressions. As such, there is an absence of research investigating video background on videoconferencing impression formation. This study explored the influence of video background, facial expression, and gender on first impressions of trustworthiness and competence. Video background affected trustworthy and competence perceptions with Plants and Book backgrounds scoring highly on both dimensions while the Home and Novelty backgrounds consistently received the lowest ratings. Happy faces were perceived as more trustworthy and more competent while female faces were also rated as more trustworthy and more competent, regardless of the background they were using. The explanations for these findings are discussed, along with future directions for research and the implications for videoconferencing use.

Focusing on the positive or the negative: Self-construal moderates negativity bias in impression updating

Negativity bias refers to the phenomenon whereby people put more weight on negative information. Although evolutionarily favorable for survival, negative bias in impression processing is detrimental to relationships and cooperation. To explore whether the motivation to maintain relationships, indicated by self-construal, mitigates negativity bias, two studies were conducted. In study 1, participants interacted with three agents (worsened, improved, baseline) in a modified social learning task and evaluated the moral level of these agents. Results showed that positivity bias appeared among interdependent individuals, with larger updating for the improved agent than for the worsened agent. Moreover, interdependent individuals exhibited less immediate decreases toward the worsened agent and steeper increases toward the improved agent than did independent individuals. To validate the results of study 1, we used a narrative description paradigm in study 2. Participants read the behavior descriptions of agents and rated them on morality. The negativity bias was significantly mitigated among individuals with high interdependence, though it did not reverse. These results indicate that interdependent individuals focus more on positive information when others change, yielding a more positive pattern in impression updating. This flexible interpersonal coping strategy can bring advantages to social interaction and cooperation.

Doctor trustworthiness influences pain and its neural correlates in virtual medical interactions

Trust is an important component of the doctor-patient relationship and is associated with improved patient satisfaction and health outcomes. Previously, we reported that patient feelings of trust and similarity toward their clinician predicted reductions in evoked pain in response to painful heat stimulations. In the present study, we investigated the brain mechanisms underlying this effect. We used face stimuli previously developed using a data-driven computational modeling approach that differ in perceived trustworthiness and superimposed them on bodies dressed in doctors' attire. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants (n = 42) underwent a series of virtual medical interactions with these doctors during which they received painful heat stimulation as an analogue of a painful diagnostic procedure. Participants reported increased pain when receiving painful heat stimulations from low-trust doctors, which was accompanied by increased activity in pain-related brain regions and a multivariate pain-predictive neuromarker. Findings suggest that patient trust in their doctor may have tangible impacts on pain and point to a potential brain basis for trust-related reductions in pain through the modulation of brain circuitry associated with the sensory-discriminative and affective-motivational dimensions of pain.

Understanding trait impressions from faces

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.

Image variability and face matching

This study investigates whether variability in perceived trait judgements disrupts our ability to match unfamiliar faces. In this preregistered study, 174 participants completed a face matching task where they were asked to indicate whether two ambient face images belonged to the same person or different people (17,748 total data points). Participants completed 51 match trials consisting of images of the same person that differed substantially on one trait (either trustworthiness, dominance or attractiveness) with minimal differences in the alternate traits. Participants also completed 51 mismatch trials which contained two photos of similar-looking individuals. We hypothesised that participants would make more errors on match trials when images differed in terms of attractiveness ratings than when they differed on trustworthiness or dominance. Contrary to expectations, images that differed in terms of attractiveness were matched most accurately, and there was no relationship between the extent of differences in attractiveness ratings and accuracy. There was some evidence that differences in perceived dominance and, to a lesser extent, trustworthiness were associated with lower face matching performance. However, these relationships were not significant when alternate traits were accounted for. The findings of our study suggest that face matching performance is largely robust against variation in trait judgements.

The cultural learning account of first impressions

Humans spontaneously attribute character traits to strangers based on their facial appearance. Although these 'first impressions' typically have no basis in reality, some authors have assumed that they have an innate origin. By contrast, the Trait Inference Mapping (TIM) account proposes that first impressions are products of culturally acquired associative mappings that allow activation to spread from representations of facial appearance to representations of trait profiles. According to TIM, cultural instruments, including propaganda, illustrated storybooks, art and iconography, ritual, film, and TV, expose many individuals within a community to common sources of correlated face-trait experience, yielding first impressions that are shared by many, but typically inaccurate. Here, we review emerging empirical findings, many of which accord with TIM, and argue that future work must distinguish first impressions based on invariant facial features (e.g., shape) from those based on facial behaviours (e.g., expressions).

Impact of Face Masks and Viewers' Anxiety on Ratings of First Impressions from Faces

Face mask is now a common feature in our social environment. Although face covering reduces our ability to recognize other's face identity and facial expressions, little is known about its impact on the formation of first impressions from faces. In two online experiments, we presented unfamiliar faces displaying neutral expressions with and without face masks, and participants rated the perceived approachableness, trustworthiness, attractiveness, and dominance from each face on a 9-point scale. Their anxiety levels were measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and Social Interaction Anxiety Scale. In comparison with mask-off condition, wearing face masks (mask-on) significantly increased the perceived approachableness and trustworthiness ratings, but showed little impact on increasing attractiveness or decreasing dominance ratings. Furthermore, both trait and state anxiety scores were negatively correlated with approachableness and trustworthiness ratings in both mask-off and mask-on conditions. Social anxiety scores, on the other hand, were negatively correlated with approachableness but not with trustworthiness ratings. It seems that the presence of a face mask can alter our first impressions of strangers. Although the ratings for approachableness, trustworthiness, attractiveness, and dominance were positively correlated, they appeared to be distinct constructs that were differentially influenced by face coverings and participants’ anxiety types and levels.

Effects of Face Masks on Person Perception

As face masks have become more commonplace in many regions due to COVID-19, concerns have been raised about their effects on the perception of mask wearers and social cohesion more broadly, including racial profiling. In two studies we examined the effects of masks on social judgments of mask wearers, and whether masks have different effects on judgments of Black and White faces. Participants rated 20 Black and 20 White faces with and without masks on trustworthiness/approachability (Studies 1 and 2) and on dominance/competence and attractiveness (Study 2). In both studies masks increased perceived trustworthiness and reduced the effect of face race on judgments. Masks also increased perceived attractiveness, but had no effect on the perception of dominance/competence. Overall, this study found no negative effects of face masks on judgments of mask wearers, though further research is needed.

The Nonlinear and Gender-Related Relationships of Face Attractiveness and Typicality With Perceived Trustworthiness

Perceived trustworthiness is one of the most important facial traits in social interaction. To elucidate how facial trustworthiness is assessed by others and its relationship to other facial traits would have significant theoretical and practical implications. Prior studies have shown that perceived attractiveness and typicality of a face may contribute to trustworthiness judgments; i.e., trustworthy faces are always the typical and attractive ones. Here, by conducting judgments of facial traits (i.e., trustworthiness, attractiveness, and typicality) on the same set of faces, we revealed a more profound relationship among these facial traits. First, we found that trustworthiness judgments did not always peak at the average face, in contrast to previous research. Second, trustworthiness exhibited a nonlinear relationship with attractiveness and typicality: Men relied more on typicality when judging a face as untrustworthy or neutral, whereas women relied more on typicality when judging a face as untrustworthy but more on attractiveness when judging a face as trustworthy. Third, women and men may utilize different traits to evaluate face trustworthiness: The relationship between trustworthiness and typicality judgments was closer in men than in women, whereas women counted on face attractiveness more than men did to evaluate face trustworthiness. These findings demonstrate that judging the trustworthiness of a face is a more complex process than previously thought, which may lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying highly flexible and sophisticated social interactions in humans.

Perception of Faces and Elaboration of Gender and Victim/Aggressor Stereotypes: The Influence of Internet Use and of the Perceiver's Personality

The use of social media, particularly among youngsters, is characterized by simple and fast image exploration, mostly of people, particularly faces. The study presented here was conducted in order to investigate stereotypical judgments about men and women concerning past events of aggression—perpetrated or suffered—expressed on the basis of their faces, and gender-related differences in the judgments. To this aim, 185 participants answered a structured questionnaire online. The questionnaire contained 30 photos of young people’s faces, 15 men and 15 women (Ma et al., 2015), selected on the basis of the neutrality of their expression, and participants were asked to rate each face with respect to masculinity/femininity, strength/weakness, and having a past of aggression, as a victim or as a perpetrator. Information about the empathic abilities and personality traits of participants were also collected. The results indicate that the stereotypes—both of gender and those of victims and perpetrators—emerge as a consequence of the visual exploration of faces that present no facial emotion. Some characteristics of the personality of the observers, such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, and affective empathy, have a role in facilitating or hindering stereotype processing, in different ways for male and female faces by male and female observers. In particular, both genders attribute their positive stereotypical attributes to same-gender faces: men see male faces as stronger, masculine, and more aggressive than women do, and women see female faces as more feminine, less weak, and less as victims than men do. Intensive use of social media emerges as a factor that could facilitate the expression of some stereotypes of violent experiences and considering female subjects as more aggressive. Findings in this study can contribute to research on aggressive behavior on the Internet and improve our understanding of the multiple factors involved in the elaboration of gender stereotypes relative to violent or victim behavior.

Do I trust you when you smile? Effects of sex and emotional expression on facial trustworthiness appraisal

Background

Trust is a prerequisite for successful social relations. People tend to form a first impression of people‘s trustworthiness based on their facial appearance. The sex of the judging person and its congruency with the sex of the judged people influence these appraisals. Moreover, trustworthiness and happiness share some facial features, which has led to studies investigating the interplay between both social judgments. Studies revealed high correlation in judging happiness and trustworthiness across different facial identities. However, studies are missing that investigate whether this relationship exists on a within-subject level and whether in-group biases such as the congruency between the sex of the judging and judged individual influence this relationship. In the present study, we addressed these questions.

Methods

Data were collected in an online-survey in two separate samples (N = 30, German sample, N = 107 Dutch sample). Subjects assessed the intensity of happiness and trustworthiness expressed in neutral and calm facial expression of the same characters (50% males, 50% females). Statistical analyses comprised rm-Anova designs based on rating scores and estimates of within-subject associations between both judgments.

Results

Our findings replicate high correlations between happiness and trustworthiness ratings across facial identities based on average scores across participants. However, the strength of this association was strongly dependent on the methodological approach and inter-subject variability was high. Our data revealed an in-group advantage for trustworthiness in women. Moreover, the faces’ sex and emotional expressions differentially influenced the within-subject correlation between both judgments in men and women.

Conclusion

Our findings replicate previous studies on the association between happiness and trustworthiness judgments. We extend our understanding of the link between both social judgments by uncovering that within-subject variability is high and influenced by sex and the availability and appraisal of positive emotional facial cues.

The effects of participants' sex and the facial trustworthiness of proposers on third-party decision-making in a dictator game

This study investigated the effects of participants' sex and the facial trustworthiness of proposers on third-party decision-making. Sixty-three participants participated in this study. The participant's task was to act as an interest-free third party who observed a dictator game in which proposers with either trustworthy or untrustworthy faces made offers to recipients, to evaluate the reasonableness of the offers, and to express their intentions to punish the proposers. The results showed that offers from trustworthy proposers were rated as more reasonable than offers from untrustworthy proposers. Similarly, the participants were more likely to punish untrustworthy proposers than trustworthy proposers. In addition, there was a trend that male participants punished proposers more severely than female participants when proposers made unfair offers. These results demonstrate that an individual's facial trustworthiness affects other people's judgment and decisions.

Sex differences in the first impressions made by girls and boys with autism

BACKGROUND

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are characterized by social communication challenges and repetitive behaviors that may be quickly detected by experts (Autism Res 10:653-62, 2017; American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 2013). Recent research suggests that even naïve non-experts judge a variety of human dimensions using narrow windows of experience called "first impressions." Growing recognition of sex differences in a variety of observable behaviors in ASD, combined with research showing that some autistic girls and women may "camouflage" outward symptoms, suggests it may be more difficult for naïve conversation partners to detect ASD symptoms in girls. Here, we explore the first impressions made by boys and girls with ASD and typically developing (TD) peers.

METHODS

Ninety-three school-aged children with ASD or TD were matched on IQ; autistic girls and boys were additionally matched on autism symptom severity using the ADOS-2. Participants completed a 5-minute "get-to-know-you" conversation with a new young adult acquaintance. Immediately after the conversation, confederates rated participants on a variety of dimensions. Our primary analysis compared conversation ratings between groups (ASD boys, ASD girls, TD boys, TD girls).

RESULTS

Autistic girls were rated more positively than autistic boys by novel conversation partners (better perceived social communication ability), despite comparable autism symptom severity as rated by expert clinicians (equivalent true social communication ability). Boys with ASD were rated more negatively than typical boys and typical girls by novel conversation partners as well as expert clinicians. There was no significant difference in the first impressions made by autistic girls compared to typical girls during conversations with a novel conversation partner, but autistic girls were rated lower than typical girls by expert clinicians.

LIMITATIONS

This study cannot speak to the ways in which first impressions may differ for younger children, adults, or individuals who are not verbally fluent; in addition, there were more autistic boys than girls in our sample, making it difficult to detect small effects.

CONCLUSIONS

First impressions made during naturalistic conversations with non-expert conversation partners could-in combination with clinical ratings and parent report-shed light on the nature and effects of behavioral differences between girls and boys on the autism spectrum.

Angry, old, male - and trustworthy? How expressive and person voice characteristics shape listener trust

This study examined how trustworthiness impressions depend on vocal expressive and person characteristics and how their dependence may be explained by acoustical profiles. Sentences spoken in a range of emotional and conversational expressions by 20 speakers differing in age and sex were presented to 80 age and sex matched listeners who rated speaker trustworthiness. Positive speaker valence but not arousal consistently predicted greater perceived trustworthiness. Additionally, voices from younger as compared with older and female as compared with male speakers were judged more trustworthy. Acoustic analysis highlighted several parameters as relevant for being perceived as trustworthy (i.e., accelerated tempo, low harmonic-to-noise ratio, more shimmer, low fundamental frequency, more jitter, large intensity range) and showed that effects partially overlapped with those for perceived speaker affect, age, but not sex. Specifically, a fast speech rate and a lower harmonic-to-noise ratio differentiated trustworthy from untrustworthy, positive from negative, and younger from older voices. Male and female voices differed in other ways. Together, these results show that a speaker’s expressive as well as person characteristics shape trustworthiness impressions and that their effect likely results from a combination of low-level perceptual and higher-order conceptual processes.

Pain and satisfaction: healthcare providers' facial appearance matters

Trait inferences based solely on facial appearance affect many social decisions. Here we tested whether the effects of such inferences extend to the perception of physical sensations. In an actual clinical setting, we show that healthcare providers' facial appearance is a strong predictor of pain experienced by patients during a medical procedure. The effect was specific to familiarity: facial features of healthcare providers that convey feelings of familiarity were associated with a decrease in patients' perception of pain. In addition, caring appearance of the healthcare providers was significantly related to patients' satisfaction with the care they received. Besides indicating that rapid, unreflective trait inferences from facial appearance may affect important healthcare outcomes, these findings contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying social modulation of pain perception.

The Role of Gender in the Preconscious Processing of Facial Trustworthiness and Dominance

The present study adopted the breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm (b-CFS) to investigate how Chinese participants process trustworthiness (Experiment 1) and dominance (Experiment 2) at the preconscious level. In addition, we tested whether the gender of a face and the gender of a participant can influence the preconscious processing of facial trustworthiness and dominance. Experiment 1 showed that the least and most trustworthy faces both took significantly less time to break into awareness than neutral faces. In Experiment 2, for female faces, neutral faces took significantly less time to break into awareness than the least and most dominant faces. In both experiments, female faces broke through suppression faster than male faces. In summary, for Chinese participants, the preconscious processing of trustworthiness was not different between male and female faces. However, the preconscious processing of dominance was different between male and female faces.

Prospective Associations Between Boys' Substance Use and Problem Behavior Histories and Their Facial Trustworthiness in Adulthood

Introduction: People whose faces look untrustworthy tend to receive harsher social evaluations, including more severe criminal sentences. Yet little is known about how much facial trustworthiness reflects individuals' behavioral histories. We examined whether adolescent histories of delinquency and substance use predict strangers' perceptions of young men's facial trustworthiness.

Methods: Boys (n = 206) recruited from schools with higher juvenile crime rates were assessed repeatedly from ages 10–24 years, including arrest records and self-reported delinquency and substance use. Coders blind to the study's purpose rated participants' facial trustworthiness from photographs taken at ages 14 and 24; parent-reported childhood family income and coder ratings of attractiveness and positive affect at age 24 were considered as controls.

Results: Facial trustworthiness at age 24 (but not age 14) negatively correlated with all measures of problem behavior. Yet, self-reported tobacco use occasions from ages 12–23 had the strongest association with facial trustworthiness at age 24, a relation that persisted when controlling for arrests and delinquency from ages 12–23, other substance use, family income, ratings of age-24 positive facial affect, attractiveness, and age-14 facial trustworthiness (β = −.29, 95% CI [−.42, −.15], p < .001).

Discussion: Although boys' early facial trustworthiness did not relate to their later problem behavior, men with histories of more delinquency and tobacco use appeared less facially trustworthy as adults. Appearance-related biases may have forensic and healthcare implications for young men. Additionally, prevention efforts could leverage information about the early impacts of tobacco use on appearance.

Gender Differences in the First Impressions of Autistic Adults

Prior research has shown that less favourable first impressions are formed of autistic adults by non-autistic observers. Autistic females may present differently to autistic males and could engage in more camouflaging behaviours, which could affect these first impressions. However, research has not yet tested for gender differences in the first impressions of autistic adults. In the current study, non-autistic observers (n = 205) viewed either 10-sec video clips or text transcripts in the context of a mock job interview by 10 autistic females and 10 autistic males, matched to 10 non-autistic females and 10 non-autistic males. They then rated each stimulus on personality traits (e.g., awkwardness) and behavioural intentions (e.g., "I would start a conversation with this person"). Non-autistic observers were blind to diagnostic status of the individuals in either modality. Results showed that first impressions were less favourable overall of autistic adults in the video modality. Furthermore, autistic females were rated more favourably than autistic males in the video modality across most traits-but autistic females were also rated less favourably than both non-autistic females and males. Some judgements were also made in the text modality, whereby more favourable first impressions were made of autistic males on the basis of speech content. Understanding the first impressions that both autistic females and males make has important implications for diagnostic services and employment prospects. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1495-1504. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: We found that non-autistic people formed more negative first impressions of autistic people, and this was influenced by gender of the person being evaluated. Autistic women were judged more favourably than autistic men; however, both autistic women and men were rated less positively than non-autistic people, with large differences between judgements of autistic females in comparison to non-autistic females. The findings have implications for clinicians and employers who may make rapid judgements based on someone's gender.

Do facial first impressions reflect a shared social reality?

Influential facial impression models have repeatedly shown that trustworthiness, youthful-attractiveness, and dominance dimensions subserve a wide variety of first impressions formed from strangers' faces, suggestive of a shared social reality. However, these models are built from impressions aggregated across observers. Critically, recent work has now shown substantial inter-observer differences in facial impressions, raising the important question of whether these dimensional models based on aggregated group data are meaningful at the individual observer level. We addressed this question with a novel case series approach, using factor analyses of ratings of twelve different traits to build individual models of facial impressions for different observers. Strikingly, three dimensions of trustworthiness, youthful/attractiveness, and competence/dominance appeared across the majority of these individual observer models, demonstrating that the dimensional approach is indeed meaningful at the individual level. Nonetheless, we also found differences in the stability of the competence/dominance dimension across observers. Taken together, results suggest that individual differences in impressions arise in the context of a largely common structure that supports a shared social reality.

First Impression Misleads Emotion Recognition

Recognition of others’ emotions is a key life ability that guides one’s own choices and behavior, and it hinges on the recognition of others’ facial cues. Independent studies indicate that facial appearance-based evaluations affect social behavior, but little is known about how facial appearance-based trustworthiness evaluations influence the recognition of specific emotions. We tested the hypothesis that first impressions based on facial appearance affect the recognition of basic emotions. A total of 150 participants completed a dynamic emotion recognition task. In a within-subjects design, the participants viewed videos of individuals with trustworthy-looking, neutral, or untrustworthy-looking faces gradually and continuously displaying basic emotions (happiness, anger, fear, and sadness). The participants’ accuracy and speed in recognizing the emotions were measured. Untrustworthy-looking faces decreased participants’ emotion recognition accuracy and speed, across emotion types. In addition, faces that elicited a positive inference of trustworthiness enhanced emotion recognition speed of fear and sadness, emotional expressions that signal another’s distress and modulate prosocial behavior. These findings suggest that facial appearance-based inferences may interfere with the ability to accurately and rapidly recognize others’ basic emotions.

Angry, old, male - and trustworthy? How expressive and person voice characteristics shape listener trust

This study examined how trustworthiness impressions depend on vocal expressive and person characteristics and how their dependence may be explained by acoustical profiles. Sentences spoken in a range of emotional and conversational expressions by 20 speakers differing in age and sex were presented to 80 age and sex matched listeners who rated speaker trustworthiness. Positive speaker valence but not arousal consistently predicted greater perceived trustworthiness. Additionally, voices from younger as compared with older and female as compared with male speakers were judged more trustworthy. Acoustic analysis highlighted several parameters as relevant for differentiating trustworthiness ratings and showed that effects largely overlapped with those for speaker valence and age, but not sex. Specifically, a fast speech rate, a low harmonic-to-noise ratio, and a low fundamental frequency mean and standard deviation differentiated trustworthy from untrustworthy, positive from negative, and younger from older voices. Male and female voices differed in other ways. Together, these results show that a speaker’s expressive as well as person characteristics shape trustworthiness impressions and that their effect likely results from a combination of low-level perceptual and higher-order conceptual processes.

Inter-rater agreement in trait judgements from faces

Researchers have long been interested in how social evaluations are made based upon first impressions of faces. It is also important to consider the level of agreement we see in such evaluations across raters and what this may tell us. Typically, high levels of inter-rater agreement for facial judgements are reported, but the measures used may be misleading. At present, studies commonly report Cronbach's α as a way to quantify agreement, although problematically, there are various issues with the use of this measure. Most importantly, because researchers treat raters as items, Cronbach's α is inflated by larger sample sizes even when agreement between raters is fixed. Here, we considered several alternative measures and investigated whether these better discriminate between traits that were predicted to show low (parental resemblance), intermediate (attractiveness, dominance, trustworthiness), and high (age, gender) levels of agreement. Importantly, the level of inter-rater agreement has not previously been studied for many of these traits. In addition, we investigated whether familiar faces resulted in differing levels of agreement in comparison with unfamiliar faces. Our results suggest that alternative measures may prove more informative than Cronbach's α when determining how well raters agree in their judgements. Further, we found no apparent influence of familiarity on levels of agreement. Finally, we show that, like attractiveness, both trustworthiness and dominance show significant levels of private taste (personal or idiosyncratic rater perceptions), although shared taste (perceptions shared with other raters) explains similar levels of variance in people's perceptions. In conclusion, we recommend that researchers investigating social judgements of faces consider alternatives to Cronbach's α but should also be prepared to examine both the potential value and origin of private taste as these might prove informative.

The influence of T-shirt graphics on perceptions and behavioral intentions

Do graphics on clothing drive perceptions? We used a between group design to test if athletic, academic, or suggestive graphics on clothing differentially influence perceptions and behavioral intentions. In study 1, participants (N = 199) rated five female t-shirt models, and in study 2 and 3, participants rated five male t-shirt models (N = 120) or university students (N = 50). Analyses of variance controlling for sex (ANCOVA) showed participants were least likely to want to interact with models/students wearing sexually suggestive graphics: Study 1, F(3,165) = 30.263, p < .001, η_p² = .30, power = 1.00; Study 2, F (3,119) = 11.630, p < .000, η_p² = .234, and Study 3, F(1, 42) = 12.578, p < .000. Participants did not rate models in the academic and athletic graphic shirts differently from models with plain white shirts. Results support the concept that people form different perceptions based upon the clothing a person wears, changing behavioral intentions. Neither sex role ideation (Study 1) or sexism (Study 2) were significant covariates of perceptions and intentions.

Faces Tell Everything in a Just and Biologically Determined World: Lay Theories Behind Face Reading

The present research investigated an often presumed but rarely assessed construct named the physiognomic belief—a generic belief that various traits can be inferred from faces. Studies in Japan and the United States have demonstrated that this belief can be measured reliably and invariantly across cultures and that those having stronger beliefs make more extreme trait inferences from faces. Of note, in both countries, the physiognomic belief is positively associated with a biologically deterministic view of personality traits and a belief in a just world. These findings suggest two types of naive justifications for the physiognomic belief: faces and traits should be related because they are both manifestations of biological essences and because the world is an orderly place wherein people get faces they deserve. This highlights an understudied role of folk concepts involving faces and traits in the popularity of face-based trait inference among laypeople.

Blindness and social trust: The effect of early visual deprivation on judgments of trustworthiness

Investigating the impact of early visual deprivation on evaluations related to social trust has received little attention to date. This is despite consistent evidence suggesting that early onset blindness may interfere with the normal development of social skills. In this study, we investigated whether early blindness affects judgments of trustworthiness regarding the actions of an agent, with trustworthiness representing the fundamental dimension in the social evaluation. Specifically, we compared performance between a group of early blind individuals with that of sighted controls in their evaluation of trustworthiness of an agent after hearing a pair of two positive or two negative social behaviors (impression formation). Participants then repeated the same evaluation following the presentation of a third (consistent or inconsistent) behavior regarding the same agent (impression updating). Overall, blind individuals tended to give similar evaluations compared to their sighted counterparts. However, they also valued positive behaviors significantly more than sighted controls when forming their impression of an agent's trustworthiness. Moreover, when inconsistent information was provided, blind individuals were more prone to revise their initial evaluation compared to controls. These results suggest that early visual deprivation may have a dramatic effect on the evaluation of social factors such as trustworthiness.