No abstract

The fact that a mere glance makes it possible to extract a wealth of information about the person being observed is testament to both the salience of the human face and the brain’s high efficiency in processing this information. Prior work has revealed that social judgments of faces are determined by facial features that vary on two orthogonal dimensions: trustworthiness and dominance. We conducted two experiments to investigate the visual information subtending trustworthiness and dominance judgments. In Experiment 1, we used the Bubbles technique to identify the facial areas and the spatial frequencies that modulate these two judgments. Our results show that the eye and mouth areas in high-to-medium spatial frequency bands were positively correlated with judgments of trustworthiness; the eyebrows region in medium-to-low frequency bands was positively correlated with judgments of dominance; and the lower left jawbone in medium-to-low frequency bands was negatively correlated with judgments of dominance. In Experiment 2, we used the results of Experiment 1 to induce subtle variations in the relative contrast of different facial areas, and showed that it is possible to rig social perception using such a manipulation.

Black people are still considered to be one of the most stigmatized groups and have to face multiple prejudices that undermine their well-being. Assumptions and beliefs about other racial groups are quite pervasive and have been shown to impact basic social tasks such as face processing. For example, individuals with high racial prejudice conceptualize otherrace faces as less trustworthy and more criminal. However, it is unknown if implicit racial bias could modulate even low-level perceptual mechanisms such as spatial frequency (SF) extraction when judging the level of trustworthiness of other-race faces. The present study showed that although similar facial features are used to judge the trustworthiness of White and Black faces, own-race faces are processed in lower SF (i.e. coarse information such as the contour of the face and blurred shapes as opposed to high SF representing fine-grained information such as eyelashes or fine wrinkles). This pattern was modulated by implicit race biases: higher implicit biases are associated with a significantly higher reliance on low SF with White than with Black faces.

I have used McAdams's (1993) book and the exercise with much success. Students are enthusiastic about writing autobiographies, and their papers are insightful and often poignant. They take the exercise seriously, conscientiously addressing necessary points, editing out unduly repetitive ideas, and actively searching for themes and imagoes. I am pleased by the effort they put into their writing and moved by their experiences. The only difficulty I encounter is grading their lives and imagoes-not an easy feat, but a welcome one if I receive such quality work.After completing the identity exercise, students evaluated it. In the spring of 1995, 23 students (9 men. 14 women) completed the evaluation forms (total enrollment was 26). Students rated (a) how much they liked the project overall on a 7-point scaled ranging from 1 (did not like at all) to 7 (liked uery much) and (b) how much they learned about themselves on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (not much) to 7 (agremdeal). O n average, students liked the exercise (M = 5.2, SD = 1.2) and they learned a lot about themselves (M = 5.2, SD = 1.2) in the process.Beyond this quantitative confirmation, students commented that the exercise vividly illustrated McAdams's (1993) theory of personality development. Many remarked that, although it was time consuming, keeping a daily journal was revelatory. They were appropriately critical, suggesting that parts oftheexercise be made less restrictive. For example, several students suggested that journal entries be less directive, as the former approach encouraged redundancy. In reading their comments, 1 also discovered that, although traditional-age undergraduates may possess some imagoes. these students are only beginning to develop personal myths for their lives. In contrast, nontraditional students tend to have better developed myths and-not surprising, given broader life experience-a better sense of generativity.An important caveat regarding the use of the exercise must be mentioned. Faculty and students need to be aware that any self-discovery exercise can be problematic ifand when it raises uncomfortable issues about the self, one's family, and so on. Ethically speaking, students should not feel compelled to disclose such private information during the exercise, and they must be informed that their project grades will not suffer as a resdt.Siilarly, teachersmustpubliclypledgetohonorstudent privacy and, when necessary, assign a more traditional paper. ConclusionIn my view, good pedagogy directs self-reflective enthusiasm and imaninationinto a worthv intellectual activitv. Writing about imagoes to understand tke place of myths and stories in the development of one's personality achieves this end. References Erilwon, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth undcrisis. New York: Norton. McAdams, D. P. (1985). The "imago": A key narrative component of identity. In P. Shaver (Ed.), Rwiew of personality and social Tk sue-weight illusion occurs when a person Lfi 2 equal-weight objects differingin sire and perceives t k large object as li&ter t...

No abstract