Abstract
Social judgments of faces made by Western participants are thought to be underpinned by two dimensions: valence and dominance. Because some research suggests that Western and Eastern participants process faces differently, the two-dimensional model of face evaluation may not necessarily apply to judgments of faces by Eastern participants. Here we used a data-driven approach to investigate the components underlying social judgments of Chinese faces by Chinese participants. Analyses showed that social judgments of Chinese faces by Chinese participants are partly underpinned by a general approachability dimension similar to the valence dimension previously found to underpin Western participants’ evaluations of White faces. However, we found that a general capability dimension, rather than a dominance dimension, contributed to Chinese participants’ evaluations of Chinese faces. Thus, our findings present evidence for both cultural similarities and cultural differences in social evaluations of faces. Importantly, the dimension that explained most of the variance in Chinese participants’ social judgments of faces was strikingly similar to the valence dimension previously reported for Western participants.
Highlights
People automatically and rapidly evaluate faces on a variety of traits
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of multiple trait ratings has revealed that social judgments of faces can be reduced to two main orthogonal dimensions: valence and dominance ([5,6,7], but see [8,9] for evidence of an additional youthful-attractiveness dimension under some circumstances)
Han et al found that Eastern and Western participants’ showed different preferences for color information when judging the attractiveness and health of faces [11]. These findings suggest that the two-dimensional model of face evaluation previously reported for Western participants may not necessarily generalize to judgments of faces by Eastern participants
Summary
People automatically and rapidly evaluate faces on a variety of traits (e.g., trustworthiness, attractiveness [1,2,3]). These stereotypic evaluations can have substantial effects on people’s behavior Understanding factors that influence our social evaluations of faces can provide important insights into one route through which social stereotypes can influence social interaction [5,6,7]. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of multiple trait ratings has revealed that social judgments of faces can be reduced to two main orthogonal dimensions: valence and dominance ([5,6,7], but see [8,9] for evidence of an additional youthful-attractiveness dimension under some circumstances). The valence dimension is positively correlated with all positive traits (e.g., perceived attractiveness and trustworthiness) and negatively correlated with all negative traits (e.g., perceived weirdness and meanness) and can be interpreted as valence evaluations
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