What’s in a face? The role of facial features in ratings of dominance, threat, and stereotypicality

Abstract

Faces judged as stereotypically Black are perceived negatively relative to less stereotypical faces. In this experiment, artificial faces were constructed to examine the effects of nose width, lip fullness, and skin reflectance, as well as to study the relations among perceived dominance, threat, and Black stereotypicality. Using a multilevel structural equation model to isolate contributions of the facial features and the participant demographics, results showed that stereotypicality was related to wide nose, darker reflectance, and to a lesser extent full lips; threat was associated with wide nose, thin lips, and low reflectance; dominance was mainly related to nose width. Facial features explained variance among faces, suggesting that face-type bias in this sample was related to specific face features rather than particular characteristics of the participant. People’s perceptions of relations across these traits may underpin some of the sociocultural disparities in treatment of certain individuals by the legal system.

Capuchin monkeys' (Sapajus [Cebus] apella) categorization of photos of unknown male conspecifics suggests attention to fWHR and a dominance bias

“…One ever-present threat in the social arena is a more dominant individual, who may best one in competition for resources. As might be expected, humans are particularly sensitive to any facial cues (e.g., wide nose, thin lips, and broad jaw; Kleider-Offutt et al, 2021;Windhager et al, 2011) correlated with dominance, a trait that increases with perceived masculinity (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008), body size (Han et al, 2017), and physical strength (Windhager et al, 2011). When faced with an unknown individual, dominance cues may be particularly informative when deciding how to respond, especially among individuals who may be less dominant.…”

“…Humans are not alone in this, either; birds identify dominance from the size of "badges," such as head tufts, that correlate with strength and rank (Rohwer, 1975(Rohwer, , 1977(Rohwer, , 1982, giving us reason to believe that visual cues may be an important signal across the animal kingdom to the assessment of strangers. Indeed, dominance is a key feature in structuring both human (Keating et al, 1981;Kleider-Offutt et al, 2021) and animal (Boehm, 1999;de Waal, 1982) social groups. Dominant individuals gain significant benefits (such as longevity, infant survival, and success in mating; Murray et al, 2007;Palombit et al, 2001;Rhodes et al, 2005;Silk et al, 2003;Silk et al, 2010;Valentine et al, 2014), and individuals know both their place in the hierarchy and, at least in some animals, others' places in it as well (for instance, capuchin monkeys preferentially recruit allies who outrank their adversaries, suggesting that they monitor relative rank of those around them;…”

“…When faced with an unknown individual, dominance cues may be particularly informative when deciding how to respond, especially among individuals who may be less dominant. Among humans, less dominant men show an increased attentiveness toward such cues (e.g., masculinity and height; Watkins et al, 2010) as compared to more dominant men, and women, who are often shorter and smaller than men (Batres et al, 2015; Gray & Wolfe, 1980; Zebrowitz, 2017), and therefore, presumably, less dominant, are more likely to rate male faces as more dominant overall (e.g., Kleider‐Offutt et al, 2021). Some have even argued that this suggests a potential cognitive bias toward dominance‐related threat potentials (Mealey et al, 1996).…”

“…Indeed, dominance is a key feature in structuring both human (Keating et al, 1981; Kleider‐Offutt et al, 2021) and animal (Boehm, 1999; de Waal, 1982) social groups. Dominant individuals gain significant benefits (such as longevity, infant survival, and success in mating; Murray et al, 2007; Palombit et al, 2001; Rhodes et al, 2005; Silk et al, 2003; Silk et al, 2010; Valentine et al, 2014), and individuals know both their place in the hierarchy and, at least in some animals, others' places in it as well (for instance, capuchin monkeys preferentially recruit allies who outrank their adversaries, suggesting that they monitor relative rank of those around them; Cebus capuchinus : Perry et al, 2004).…”

“…: total number of categorizations made according to dominance category; % Errors (row): percentage of errors made according to the dominance category chosen relative to the external rating of the stimulus (e.g., proportion of dominant responses made for nondominant stimuli); Total rating: total number of trials containing each type of externally rated stimulus; % Errors (column): Percentage of errors made according to the type of externally rated stimulus being categorized relative to the dominance category chosen (e.g., proportion of dominant stimuli categorized as nondominant). Total number of probe and non-probe trials presented in Testing Phase 3 are bolded.features (e.g., nose width, lip fullness, and skin properties/reflectance;Kleider-Offutt et al, 2021) that discriminate dominant from nondominant humans are different from those that discriminate dominant from nondominant capuchins, and so the monkeys did not…”