Evidence Head Tilt Has Dissociable Effects on Dominance and Trustworthiness Judgments, But Does Not Have Category-Contingent Effects on Hypothetical Leadership Judgments

Abstract

Previous research has found that physical characteristics in faces that influence perceptions of trustworthiness and dominance have contextcontingent effects on leadership perceptions. People whose faces are perceived to be trustworthy are judged to be better leaders in peacetime contexts than wartime contexts. By contrast, people whose faces are perceived to be dominant are judged to be better leaders in wartime contexts than peacetime contexts. Here we tested for judgment-contingent (dominance versus trustworthiness) effects of head tilt (i.e., head-pitch rotation) on person perception and context-contingent (peacetime versus wartime) effects of head tilt on leadership judgments. Although we found that head tilt influenced judgments of trustworthiness and dominance (Study 1), head tilt did not influence leadership judgments (Study 2). Together, these results suggest that the context-contingent effects of physical characteristics on leadership judgments reported in previous work do not necessarily extend to head tilt, even though head tilt influences perceptions of trustworthiness and dominance.

Understanding trait impressions from faces

“…Changeable cues within the face include momentary characteristics such as emotional expression, head tilt, head orientation and gaze direction (e.g. Hehman et al, 2013; Sutherland, Young, et al, 2016; Torrance et al, 2020). Finally, impressions may be affected by changeable environmental cues outwith the face itself, including physical location, lighting, camera and photographic angle.…”

Specialized Networks for Social Cognition in the Primate Brain

“…Pitch (or head tilt) is informative about emotional states. Pitch can also contribute to dominance displays (Mignault & Chaudhuri 2003, Witkower & Tracy 2019 and influences judgments of trustworthiness (Torrance et al 2020) and attractiveness (Marshall et al 2020).…”

A replication that requires replication: Commentary on Caton et al. (2022)

“…These potential sources of bias in the rating were not considered (probably due to the focus on direct replication). Still, these additional features ought to be taken into account because every single one of them has been repeatedly found to affect facial perception (smile: Mast & Hall, 2004;head tilt: Marshall et al, 2020;Mignault & Chaudhuri, 2003;Witkower & Tracy, 2019;head turning: Hehman et al, 2013Torrance et al, 2020. Moreover, such stimuli create a discrepancy between perceptions, which do include non-facial features, and the shape analysis, which is restricted to just facial features.…”