Looks influence the biggest judgments, says study

New research has revealed that people commonly judge facial traits/expressions to judge ones capabilities and personality.

The study has implied that people associate characteristics like trustworthiness, competence, dominance, and friendliness with specific facial traits.

Christopher Olivola of Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, lead author of the review article has said that this could mean that there is a systemic bias as 'face-ism,' in which people rely on these subtle and arbitrary facial traits to make important decisions, from voting for a political candidate to convicting a suspect for a crime.

Numerous studies have shown that people form impressions of aspiring leaders based on their faces, and that these superficial impressions predicted important social outcomes. For example, political candidates with naturally competent-looking faces were more likely to win elections than those who looked incompetent, and having a naturally dominant-looking face predicted rank attainment in the military, or a criminal could be regarded as guilty because of his looks.

Research has suggested that face-ism is widespread, and that it could be reduced by arming people with more relevant and valid types of information. For instance, knowing more about a political candidate and his or her positions or past behavior must makes voter less likely to be influenced by facial traits.

The study was published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.