Gender Biases in the Accuracy of Facial Judgments: Facial Attractiveness and Perceived Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

Many studies demonstrate that people form their first impression of a stranger based on facial appearance, and these impressions influence their subsequent decisions and behaviors. However, much less research has examined the factors that moderate the accuracy of first impressions based on a photo of face. The present study included three experiments to explore gender differences in the accuracy of impressions based on faces. The results showed that people judge facial attractiveness more accurately for female faces than for male faces while giving more accurate wealth judgments for male faces than for female faces. Interestingly, although we did not find a significant correlation between confidence ratings and the accuracy of wealth rating, we recognized a significant moderate correlation between confidence ratings and the accuracy of attractiveness ratings when female participants rated male faces. To our knowledge, the present study is the first to reveal gender biases in the accuracy of impression judgments based on facial appearance. These findings imply a significant influence of traditional gender roles on accurate facial judgments.

Too Beautiful to be Fake: Attractive Faces are Less Likely to be Judged as Artificially Generated

“…The quadratic relationship found for female participants is aligned with our hypothesis that salient faces (i.e., rated as very attractive or very unattractive) are judged to be more real. The fact that this effect did not reach significance for beauty underlines that attractiveness judgement, and its role in simulation monitoring, is a multidimensional construct that cannot be reduced to physical facial attractiveness, in particular for women (Buunk et al, 2002;Qi & Ying, 2022). In fact, female participants were more confident in judging faces as fake only when they were rated very high or low on beauty, suggesting that physical beauty and attractiveness are not analogous in their effects on simulation monitoring decisions.…”

“…Interestingly, we found a significant positive linear relationship in male participants for both attractiveness and beauty on simulation monitoring that we could interpret under an evolutionary lens. Specifically, males purportedly place more emphasis on facial attractiveness as a sign of reproductive potential, as compared with females, who tend to value characteristics signaling resource acquisition capabilities (Buunk et al, 2002;Fink et al, 2006;Qi & Ying, 2022). It is thus possible that the evolutionary weight associated with attractiveness skewed the perceived saliency of attractive faces for men, rendering them significantly more salient than unattractive faces, and in turn distorting the relationship with simulation monitoring.…”

Understanding Lookism

“…Understanding these impacts can be crucial for framing lookism as a societal issue that affects not just its victims but also its perpetrators. For instance, engaging in lookism may diminish the depth and richness of relationships, as superficial judgments can hinder the development of meaningful social connections [Qi Y, 2022]. Moreover, lookism may create an internal moral dissonance or ethical conflict, particularly if the individual is committed to fairness and equality [Festinger, 1957].…”