The Weird Way People Judge You Based On Your Face Shape, According To Research
Who knew?!
David Garrison | Pexels Most people have a ton of pictures on social media from vacation pics to pet photos, and of course, plenty of selfies. You might intend for that hysterical duck-faced selfie you took in the bathroom mirror to only be visible to friends and family, but inevitably, your potential new employer will see it. We have to be extra careful that the images we put out into the world convey what we want them to. You don't want a picture where you look shady to be the one your future in-laws see.
But it isn't just when we're acting out or playing the fool that people judge us; you don't even have to be doing anything silly for someone to decide that you look untrustworthy and incompetent. People are making snap judgments about us all the time based on things we can change like our facial expressions, to things we can't such as our facial bone structure.
Research has found that people tend to judge others based solely on the shape of their face.
A 2015 study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin highlighted both the limitations and the potential we have in the way we visually represent ourselves, from dating and career networking sites to social media and blog posts.
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"Our findings show that facial cues conveying trustworthiness are malleable, while facial cues conveying competence and ability are significantly less so," said Jonathan Freeman, the study's lead author. "The results suggest you can influence to an extent how trustworthy others perceive you to be in a facial photo, but perceptions of your competence or ability are considerably less able to be changed."
Judgments about traits such as competence and strength are influenced by facial bone structure.
The study reinforced the importance of facial expression in shaping our impressions of character traits, such as trustworthiness and friendliness. It also had the unexpected finding that perceptions of abilities, like strength, aren't dependent on facial expressions, but rather on the facial bone structure, which can't be changed.
For one of the experiments, participants looked at five unique photos of 10 adult males of different ethnicities. The participants' perception of the dependability of each person pictured varied significantly, with happier-looking faces being seen as more trustworthy and angrier-looking faces being seen as untrustworthy.
The subjects' perceptions of ability or competence remained unchanged — interpretations were the same, no matter which photo of the individual was being considered. After a series of experiments were completed, the findings suggested that facial expressions strongly influence the perception of traits such as trustworthiness, friendliness, or warmth, but not ability, competence, and strength.
People with wider faces are perceived as more competent and capable.
Most interestingly, the researchers found that decisions that involve guessing at the possible intentions of a person (such as someone wanting to invest your money for you) are more strongly influenced by facial expression. In contrast, those based on physical ability (such as who you'd bet on for a boxing match) are more strongly influenced by your face shape.
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If you want to appear trustworthy and friendly, it's a good idea to have a happy expression. If you are prepping for a career as a professional athlete, have aspirations to become a cutthroat CEO, or just want to be intimidating at the gym, well, you better hope you've got a nice wide face or else you're gonna have to jump through a lot of hoops to appear competent and strong.
Carmen Lefevre at Northumbria University explained to the BBC that "people with higher levels of testosterone tend to be wider-faced with bigger cheekbones, and they are also more likely to have more assertive, and sometimes aggressive, personalities."
According to this study, if you've got a thin face, it might be time to kiss your Olympic dreams goodbye. At least you can work on a permanent friendly expression to convince people you are trustworthy!
Christine Schoenwald is a writer, performer, and astrology lover. She's had articles in The Los Angeles Times, Salon, and Woman's Day.
