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Facial profiling: New study shows facial structure can reveal personality

Study connects structure of face to aggressive behavior, but what does it really tell us?

By Helen JupiterTue, Nov 03 2009 at 4:03 AM EST
 3

Photo: Andrew Mason/Flickr
 
We’ve all heard of racial profiling, but what about facial profiling? It may sound silly, but new research from a team of Brock University psychologists suggests that we subconsciously ascertain possible aggression in others based on their facial structure. The findings, published recently in Psychological Science, show that face shape — specifically a measurement called facial width-to-height ratio (WHR) — may influence the instant judgments we make about others. Not only that, but the Brock University study demonstrates that these automatic predictions can be remarkably accurate. 
 
Volunteers participating in the experiment were briefly shown photographs of the faces of men with a history of aggressive behavior, and asked to rate how aggressive they thought each person was based simply on what they saw. Even after viewing a photo for a mere 39 milliseconds, volunteers’ estimates tended to correspond closely to the actual aggressive behavior of the men in the pictures. Researchers also found that the participants judged men with larger facial width-to-height ratios as more aggressive.
 
WHR is a measurement of the distance between the right and left cheeks and the distance from the upper lip to the mid-brow. In the Brock University study, men with greater WHR received a higher aggressiveness rating by volunteers. 
 
History has shown that physiognomy is an imperfect science, so while it may seem that this study indicates a reliable link between facial structure and personality, it probably reveals more about the visual cues we use to predict personality traits in one another.

 

 

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anonymous
WKT 02/14/2011 17:39 PM

Feb. 2011
I have been playing with this amateur "informal profiling" for as along as I can remember. And, colleagues of mine I have shared this with.… I would tell them that I could meet someone, and if I found to have known someone with similar visual face and body (face being primary) and (body being secondary) features, I can with a degree certainty also find similarities in the two's personalities. I have even on some occasions talked to one person and tell them I can give them.... More

anonymous
Renegade Jojo 11/06/2009 01:40 AM

Whoa, cool study. Agree with the last commenter that study participants may also have picked up on other facial features along with WHR; muscles of the face are tightly linked to emotional state, so maybe you can read a history of violence in the way we hold muscles of our mouth, eyes, and forehead, for example. The writer is bang-on that the study is very cool demonstration of way we use essentially genetic visual cues to rapidly size each other up. Life is interesting.

anonymous
Cynthia Anderson 11/03/2009 12:14 PM

While I am usually not in favor of anything that encourages people to make snap judgements based on 'gut' reaction vs. actual interaction, I think this study is very interesting. Is it possible that the subjects were picking up on more than just bone structure? i.e. tension around the eyes or a stern looking mouth? Probably, but it definitely makes for a thought provoking subject.

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