Influences of appearance-behaviour congruity on memory and social judgements

Abstract

Prior work shows that appearance-behavior congruity impacts memory and evaluations. Building upon prior work, we assessed influences of appearance-behavior congruity on source memory and judgment strength to illustrate ways congruity effects permeate social cognition. We paired faces varying on trustworthiness with valenced behaviors to create congruent and incongruent face-behavior pairs. Young and older adults remembered congruent pairs better than incongruent, but both were remembered better than pairs with faces rated average in appearance. This suggests that multiple, even conflicting, valenced cues improve memory over receiving fewer cues. Consistent with our manipulation of facial trustworthiness, congruity effects were present in the strength of trustworthiness-related but not dominance judgments. Subtle age differences emerged in congruity effects when learning about others, with older adults showing effects for approach judgments given both high and low arousal behaviors. Young adults had congruity effects for approach, prosociality, and trustworthiness judgments, given high arousal behaviors only. These findings deepen our understanding of how appearance-behavior congruity impacts memory for and evaluations of others.

Neural Responses to Appearance-Behavior Congruity

“…These findings inform past behavioral work (Cassidy & Gutchess, 2014; Cassidy et al, 2012; Kleider, Cavrak, & Knuycky, 2012; Nash et al, 2010; Rule et al, 2012; Rule, Tskhay, Freeman, & Ambady, 2014; Suzuki & Suga, 2010) by localizing brain regions whose engagement underlies the processing of incongruent versus congruent appearance-behavior information. MPFC and dlPFC activity co-occur with congruity effects in judgment strength, connecting brain function linked to mentalizing and control to a key social behavior dependent on appearance-behavior congruity: approach likelihood.…”

“…We were interested in the relative judgment strength of congruent and incongruent pairs, as prior work identified stronger judgments toward congruent versus incongruent face-behavior pairs (Cassidy & Gutchess, 2014). Approach judgment strength, or the degree of approach motivation relative to average approach motivation, may be of interest in exploring congruity.…”

“…To compare across congruent (i.e., trustworthy-positive and untrustworthy-negative) and incongruent (i.e., trustworthy-negative and untrustworthy-positive) pairs, we took the absolute values of these subtractions. This accounts for individual differences in scale use and has been used in work considering social judgment and trait attribution strength (Cassidy & Gutchess, 2014; Follett & Hess, 2002). We collapsed across valence because behavioral work has converged on the idea that faces are better distinguished when paired with congruent versus incongruent behaviors (Cassidy & Gutchess, 2014; Rule, Slepian, & Ambady, 2012) and because we did not have a priori predictions regarding valence.…”

“…For instance, source memory for undesirable headlines is best when provided by an untrustworthy- versus trustworthy-looking source (Nash, Bryer, & Schlaghecken, 2010). People remember more impressions of others (Cassidy, Zebrowitz, & Gutchess, 2012) and are more likely to approach people (Cassidy & Gutchess, 2014) with appearance-congruent versus incongruent behaviors.…”

Age Effects on Trustworthiness Activation and Trust Biases in Face Perception

“…Given consensus in trustworthiness evaluations (Rule, Krendl, Ivcevic, & Ambady, 2013), past work has used norms to preselect untrustworthy and trustworthy faces for categorization tasks (e.g., Wilson, Young, Rule, & Hugenberg, 2018). Sixty male faces (30 trustworthy and 30 untrustworthy) were selected via YAs' and OAs' norms (Cassidy & Gutchess, 2015). Trustworthy faces (M = 4.36, SD = 0.25) were more trustworthy than untrustworthy faces (M = 3.64, SD = 0.23), t(58) = 11.70, p < .001, but similarly distinctive and attractive, ps > .22.…”