Visual cues that predict intuitive risk perception in the case of HIV

Abstract

Field studies indicate that people may form impressions about potential partners’ HIV risk, yet lack insight into what underlies such intuitions. The present study examined which cues may give rise to the perception of riskiness. Towards this end, portrait pictures of persons that are representative of the kinds of images found on social media were evaluated by independent raters on two sets of data: First, sixty visible cues deemed relevant to person perception, and second, perceived HIV risk and trustworthiness, health, and attractiveness. Here, we report correlations between cues and perceived HIV risk, exposing cue-criterion associations that may be used to infer intuitively HIV risk. Second, we trained a multiple cue-based model to forecast perceived HIV risk through cross-validated predictive modelling. Trained models accurately predicted how ‘risky’ a person was perceived ( r = 0.75) in a novel sample of portraits. Findings are discussed with respect to HIV risk stereotypes and implications regarding how to foster effective protective behaviors.

Environmental convergence in facial preferences: a cross-group comparison of Asian Vietnamese, Czech Vietnamese, and Czechs

“…One can learn a lot just by looking at another person's face. Apart from the most obvious information, such as sex and age, faces also provide information about strength, health, health risks, fighting performance, social status, emotional states, and various personality traits 2 – 7 . Facial perception is thus one of the most important aspects of human social interactions, especially due to its decisive role in forming first impressions 8 – 10 .…”

Impressions of HIV risk online: Brain potentials while viewing online dating profiles

“…Two sets (male and female) of 160 photographs each were used. These photographs have already been evaluated in terms of HIV risk in previous studies by opposite-sex raters and were retrieved with permission from public databases (Barth et al, 2013;Häcker et al, 2014;Renner et al, 2012;Schmälzle et al, 2011;Schmälzle et al, 2019). To closely resemble real dating platforms, the photographs showed portraits varying in attire, socioeconomic status cues, and situational context features.…”

Contagious Health Risk and Precautionary Social Distancing

“…In contrast to other major diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, social contact may thus be perceived as a risk factor for contagious diseases such as the flu. Since perceiving a risk for one's health motivates preventive behaviors (Leventhal, 1970;Rogers, 1975Rogers, , 1983Schwarzer, 1992Schwarzer, , 2004Schwarzer, , 2008Witte, 1992;Sheeran et al, 2013), people might also be motivated to avoid pathogen carriers or potentially infectious social contacts in order to reduce their likelihood of being exposed to infectious pathogens (Mortensen et al, 2010;Barth et al, 2013;Sawada et al, 2018;Schmälzle et al, 2019). Supporting this notion, experimental studies have shown that people prefer to avoid those who they suspect to be carrying pathogens, as well as people who actually have a disease (Crandall and Moriarty, 1995;Park et al, 2003).…”