The relationship between face-based first impressions and perceptions of purity and compared to other moral violations

Abstract

Morality is a trait which is perceived and prioritized in face-perception; however, immorality is not homogenous with two common categories being purity (e.g., cannibalism and incest) and autonomy violations (e.g., theft and corruption). The current research establishes whether both purity and autonomy violations are associated with low facial morality as well as exploring whether they are also associated with other distinct facial traits. Participants were asked to rate unfamiliar faces on either one social trait (competence, capability, likeability, friendliness, honesty, trustworthiness, dominance, or masculinity) or their likelihood to commit a purity or autonomy violation. Likelihood to commit all moral violations was predicted by lower facial morality. Additionally, all purity violations were associated with male gender and, most often, low dominance while autonomy violations and the purity violation of cannibalism were associated with high dominance. Within these categories, stealing was associated with lower competence, eating a pet dog was associated with older age, and both corruption and incest were associated with white ethnicity. This suggests low facial morality is consistently associated with perceived likelihood to commit immoral actions. However, data also suggests a distinction both between and within autonomy and purity categories in other facial traits associated with these acts.