The ecological approach to perception (J. Gibson, 1979;Shaw, Turvey, & Mace, 1982) is applied to the social domain. The general advantages of this approach are enumerated, its applicability to social perception is documented, and its specific implications for research on emotion perception, impression formation, and causal attribution are discussed. The implications of the ecological approach for our understanding of errors in social perception are also considered. Finally, the major tenets of the ecological approach are contrasted with current cognitive approaches, and a plea is made for greater attention to the role of perception in social knowing.Current research on social perception operates within a very narrow schema-the schema. The questions addressed concern the knowledge structures (e.g., schemata, prototypes, scripts) that impose meaning on the blooming, buzzing confusion around us. The questions ignored concern the structured stimulation that exists in our social environment. As such, we have learned much about the processing of information and little about what that stimulus information is. We know, for example, that there are primacy effects in impression formation: The person who is first perceived as industrious and then as stubborn will often be judged more positively than one who is first perceived as stubborn.But, what information (other than a verbal label) communicates industry or stubborness? This we do not know. Similarly, we know that there are discounting effects in causal attribution: Success on a difficult task will be attributed to ability if little effort is present, but not if there is a great deal of effort. But, what information communicates effort? This we do not know.

Physical measurements and subjective ratings of various facial features were obtained for 20 adult male stimulus faces. The faces were also rated on five personality dimensions, physical attractiveness, age, and babyfacedness. The physical measurements of large, round eyes, high eyebrows, and a small chin each yielded the perception of a babyish facial appearance, and a weighted linear composite derived from the measures of eye size and chin width accounted for 57% of the variance in ratings of babyfacedness. Both this measured composite and subjective babyfacedness ratings were positively correlated with perceptions of a male stimulus person's naivete, honesty, kindness, and warmth. Analyses revealed that these relations were not attributable to the effects of perceived age or attractiveness. The results are discussed within a theoretical framework, which suggests that the adaptive value of recognizing natural covariations between certain appearance cues and behavioral affordances may provide an explanation for some appearance-based stereotyping.

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Despite considerable evidence indicating that our perceptions of people's psychological attributes are strongly tied to their facial appearance, there has been almost no systematic and theoretically guided research on this topic. The ecological approach to social perception (McArthur & Baron, 1983) holds that facial characteristics may influence impressions if they typically reveal psychological attributes whose detection is important for adaptive functioning. For example, the facial characteristics that identify infants should reveal their helplessness. The ecological approach further predicts that a strong attunement to adaptively significant facial characteristics may be overgeneralized. In particular, it is hypothesized that adults with immature facial qualities are perceived to have childlike psychological attributes. The research we review provides strong support for this prediction. More specifically, adults with various childlike facial qualities are perceived to afford more warmth, more submission, more honesty less physical strength, and more naivete than those with more mature faces. Implications of the ecological approach for further research on face perception are discussed. The countenance is the reflection of the soul. (Cicero) Although most modern psychologists eschew the belief that character can be read from the face, this view has an ancient and distinguished history. It is found in the works of ancient philosophers like Aristotle, who described at length the facial signs of strength and weakness, genius and stupidity, timidity and boldness. It is also found in the works of great writers like Shakespeare, whose extensive use of physiognomic description attests to his conviction that the face reveals the inner person as well as his confidence that his readers would understand these correspondences. Although we have no evidence concerning how common the belief in facial cues to character was in Shakespeare's time, in modern times this supposition seems to be quite widespread. The reliance on physical appearance in descriptions of other people occurs at an early age (Livesley & Bromsley, 1973) and although psychological descriptions increase as a person matures, physical qualities continue to play a central role in our judgments of character. For instance, Liggett (1974) reported a survey of university students that revealed that over 90% believed there are important facial guides to character. Fiske and Cox (1979) further demonstrated that the belief in facial guides to character has an impact on behavior. When people were We would like to thank Jim Todd and Tom Alley for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript, and Susan Fiske for sharing with us her rare copy of LeBarr's (1922) "Why You Are What You Are."

Facial features that distinguish human infants were manipulated in schematic adult faces to test the hypothesis that impressions of babies are generalized to adults who in some way resemble babies. The results revealed that large eyes, low vertical place ment of features, and short features, either singly or in combination, served to de crease perceivers' impressions of a stimulus person's physical strength, social domi nance, and intellectual astuteness. These effects were independent of the perceived age and attractiveness of the faces; this was evidenced by partial correlation analyses, as well as by the finding that babyish features typically had the same impact on im pressions of female and male faces, even though they increased the rated attractive ness of the female faces and decreased the rated attractiveness of the male faces.