At Face Value: The Effect of Facial Traits on Social Networks and Job Performance Evaluations

Abstract

While the importance of network centrality has been extensively documented in past research, more work is needed on just how and why individuals achieve these positions within informal networks. In the current research, we argue that in addition to the previously identified benefit-assessing or calculative/rational process that individuals engage in to determine whom to turn to for information, individuals may also reach out to their colleagues following an automatic, rapid, and instinctive response. Specifically, we argue that the attributions that an information seeker (i.e., alter) makes of the facial characteristics of a possible information provider (i.e., ego) could contribute to amplifying or reducing ego’s prominence in the knowledge sharing network, which further affects ego’s subjective performance evaluations. In an organizational sample of 206 individuals, we test and find support for our mediation model specifying that the judgments of dominance and valence affect ego’s indegree centrality, which further affect performance evaluations. We conclude by discussing the practical and theoretical implications of our results.