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- Title
What's in a face? The role of facial features in ratings of dominance, threat, and stereotypicality.
- Authors
Kleider-Offutt, Heather; Meacham, Ashley M.; Branum-Martin, Lee; Capodanno, Megan
- Abstract
Faces judged as stereotypically Black are perceived negatively relative to less stereotypical faces. In this experiment, artificial faces were constructed to examine the effects of nose width, lip fullness, and skin reflectance, as well as to study the relations among perceived dominance, threat, and Black stereotypicality. Using a multilevel structural equation model to isolate contributions of the facial features and the participant demographics, results showed that stereotypicality was related to wide nose, darker reflectance, and to a lesser extent full lips; threat was associated with wide nose, thin lips, and low reflectance; dominance was mainly related to nose width. Facial features explained variance among faces, suggesting that face-type bias in this sample was related to specific face features rather than particular characteristics of the participant. People's perceptions of relations across these traits may underpin some of the sociocultural disparities in treatment of certain individuals by the legal system.
- Subjects
STRUCTURAL equation modeling; SOCIAL dominance
- Publication
Cognitive Research: Principles & Implications, 2021, Vol 6, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2365-7464
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1186/s41235-021-00319-9