Understanding trait impressions from faces

Abstract

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.

Keywords: data-driven approaches; face perception; first impressions; social cognition models; trait attributions.

FIGURE 1

Whether walking down the street or browsing online, our visual systems are exposed to a vast range of facial cues, as illustrated by these example photographs. First impressions can be made easily and intuitively from naturalistic images such as these

FIGURE 2

Different evaluative consequences of trait dominance impressions for male and female faces. Dominance in appearance is seen as having a slightly positive valence for men, but a negative valence for women. Trustworthiness, in contrast, is highly positively valenced for both genders. Data from Sutherland et al., 2015, British J. of Psychology

FIGURE 3

Trait inferences across social cognition mirror conceptual knowledge. Matrices depict pairwise similarity values between each trait pair (plotted from dissimilar (blue) to similar (red) for conceptual impressions, impressions made from faces, impressions of known people and stereotypes of groups. Matrices are sorted by a k‐means cluster solution underlying the conceptual trait space matrix, to intuitively depict their similar structure. Each matrix was collected from a distinct task, set of stimuli and set of participants, yet their similarity shows that conceptual trait space (n = 116) is largely reflected in social perceptual trait spaces across domains. The matrices are highly correlated (Spearman r = .74 and above; excluding data on and above the diagonal, as the matrices are symmetrical). Data from Stolier et al. (2020), Nature Human Behaviour

FIGURE 4

Heatmaps depicting degree of agreement in impressions across British (horizontal) and Chinese (vertical) perceivers judging White and Asian faces. Blue, r = 1, white, r = 0. Impressions depict the most frequently mentioned traits in each culture and are sorted by their contribution to British and Chinese models. The clustering pattern directly reflects dimensions emerging from more complex analyses. A strong cluster of intentionality traits can be seen, a moderate cluster for youthful‐attractiveness traits, and a small cluster for capability traits. British: Friend. = Friendly, Nice, Warm, Kind, Sweet, Quiet, Funny, Shy, Age, Attract. = Attractiveness, Mascu. = Masculinity, Intellig. = Intelligence. Chinese: Enthus. = Enthusiastic, 热情, Cheerful = 开朗, Serious = 严肃, Kind = 和善, Affable = 和蔼, Bene. = Benevolent, 慈祥, Age = 年轻人/老年人/, Wretch. = Wretched, 猥琐, Mascu. = Masculinity, 女性化的/男性化的, Attract. = Attractiveness, 吸引力, Capable = 干练, Diplom. = Diplomatic, 圆滑. Data re‐analysed from Sutherland et al. (2018), Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin