Abstract
The tendency to form first impressions from facial appearance emerges early in development. One route through which these impressions may be learned is parent-child interaction. In Study 1, 24 parent-child dyads (children aged 5–6 years, 50% male, 83% White British) were given four computer generated faces and asked to talk about each of the characters shown. Study 2 (children aged 5–6 years, 50% male, 92% White British) followed a similar procedure using images of real faces. Across both studies, around 13% of conversation related to the perceived traits of the individuals depicted. Furthermore, parents actively reinforced their children’s face-trait mappings, agreeing with the opinions they voiced on approximately 40% of occasions across both studies. Interestingly, although parents often encouraged face-trait mappings in their children, their responses to questionnaire items suggested they typically did not approve of judging others based on their appearance.
Highlights
Adults spontaneously attribute a wide range of traits to strangers based solely on their facial features
We presented parent-child dyads with a picture book containing four images
A total of 48 individuals participated in the form of twenty-four parent-child dyads (9 Mother-Daughter, 9 Mother-Son, 3 Father-Daughter, 3 Father-Son)
Summary
Adults spontaneously attribute a wide range of traits to strangers based solely on their facial features. These first impressions include judgements about trustworthiness, honesty, competence, intelligence, aggression, and likeability [1,2,3,4,5]. While a wealth of spontaneous judgements have been studied, observers’ judgments appear to load on two principal dimensions often described as ‘trustworthiness’ and ‘dominance’ [1, 5]. These first impressions exert a powerful influence over behaviour. Individuals who look competent are more likely to be elected to public office [9]
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