Social Perceptions of Facial Traits: A Pilot Study

UND Columbia Hall, 1370

Past research suggests facial traits (i.e., race, Afrocentric features, trustworthiness) influence social perceptions due to stereotypes and prejudice. A pilot study was conducted to identify face images that would satisfy conditions of future studies. Two hundred and sixty-nine Mechanical Turk participants were randomly presented and asked to rate 23 out of 73 possible images from the Chicago Face Database on numerous appearance characteristics (i.e., Afrocentric appearance, trustworthiness, anger). Our hypotheses were confirmed through several ANOVAs, such that trustworthy, neutral, and untrustworthy faces as well as more or less Afrocentric faces received significantly different trustworthy and Afrocentric ratings, respectively. Additionally, White men were perceived as significantly less trustworthy than Black men. Black men were perceived as more Afrocentric than white men, though we detected significant variability within races. Finally, untrustworthy faces were perceived as angrier than trustworthy faces, supporting an emotion-trustworthiness continuum. Implications for future research and theory are discussed.