Combined Effects of Gaze and Orientation of Faces on Person Judgments in Social Situations

Abstract

In social situations, faces of others can vary simultaneously in gaze and orientation. How these variations affect different kinds of social judgments, such as attractiveness or trustworthiness, is only partly understood. Therefore, we studied how different gaze directions, head angles, but also levels of facial attractiveness affect perceived attractiveness and trustworthiness. We always presented pairs of faces - either two average attractive faces or a highly attractive together with a less attractive face. We also varied gaze and head angles showing faces in three different orientations, front, three-quarter and profile view. In Experiment 1 (N = 62), participants rated averted gaze in three-quarter views as more attractive than in front and profile views, and evaluated faces with direct gaze in front views as most trustworthy. Moreover, faces that were being looked at by another face were seen as more attractive. Independent of the head orientation or gaze direction, highly attractive faces were rated as more attractive and more trustworthy. In Experiment 2 (N = 54), we found that the three-quarter advantage vanished when the second face was blurred during judgments, which demonstrates the importance of the presence of another person-as in a triadic social situation-as well as the importance of their visible gaze. The findings emphasize that social evaluations such as trustworthiness are unaffected by the esthetic advantage of three-quarter views of two average attractive faces, and that the effect of a faces' attractiveness is more powerful than the more subtle effects of gaze and orientations.

Keywords: attractiveness; gaze direction; person judgments; social scene; three-quarter views of faces; trustworthiness.

FIGURE 1

Gaze conditions across orientation of faces. (A) A social approach (DIR+LAT), an averted gaze face in three-quarter view (45°) looking toward a direct gaze in front view (0°), (B) a social avoidance condition (DIR+AV), an averted gaze face in profile view (90°) looking away from a direct gaze in front view (0°), and (C) an ambiguous gaze condition (LAT+AV), averted gaze face in three-quarter view (45°) looking toward while the second face looks away in profile view (90°). (D) One-face scene, the face shows direct gaze in front view toward the observer (in Experiment 1), and an example of stimuli in the rating block of Experiment 2; participants rate the left (E) and the right face (F) separately while the background is blurred.

FIGURE 2

Analyses of highly, average and less attractive faces in triadic situations. (A) Shows mean attractiveness ratings of equal and different scenes. Participants rated highly attractive faces most attractive followed by average and less attractive faces. Note that averted faces looking toward (45°) are considered more attractive than direct (0°) and averted gaze looking away (90°). (B) Shows mean trustworthiness ratings of equal and different scenes. Participants rated highly attractive faces more trustworthy than average and less attractive faces. Note that direct gaze (0°) of average and less attractive faces are considered more trustworthy than averted gaze faces looking toward (45°) or away (90°) from a second face.