The current research tests the hypothesis that face processing is attuned to high-status faces. Across three experiments, faces of high-status targets were better recognized than faces of low-status targets. In Experiment 2, this memory advantage for high-status targets also extended to an attentional bias toward high-status targets and to stronger sociospatial memory (identity-location link) for high-status targets. Finally, Experiment 3 finds that high-status faces received more expert-style holistic processing than did low-status faces. This suggests that high-status faces also benefit more from the strategic deployment of expert face processing resources than low-status faces. Taken together, these data indicate that perceivers strategically allocate face processing resources to targets perceived to be high in status.

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The expression of anger is an important signal of both danger and threat to social relationships. furthermore, anger expressed by high-status people should be especially apparent due to the fact that high-status people may be perceived as more able to act on their intentions than low-status people. In the current research, we test the hypothesis that a perceiver will be biased toward anger appearing on the face of a high-status compared to a low-status face. Using an emotion detection task across two experiments, our findings revealed that White participants perceived anger to persist longer (Study 1) and appear sooner (Study 2) on the faces of high-status compared to low-status targets. This suggests that social context, in general, and social status (as indicated by occupation), in particular, can influence the perception of anger.