People Can Accurately (But Not Adaptively) Judge Strangers’ Antigay Prejudice from Faces

Abstract

The ecological theory of social perception suggests that people’s first impressions should be especially accurate for judgments relevant to their goals. Here, we tested whether people could accurately judge others’ levels of antigay prejudice and whether gay men’s accuracy would exceed straight men’s accuracy in making these judgments. We found that people judged men’s (but not women’s) levels of antigay prejudice accurately from photos of their faces and that impressions of facial power supported their judgments. Gay men and straight men did not significantly differ in their sensitivity to antigay prejudice, however. People may therefore judge others’ levels of prejudice accurately regardless of their personal stake in its consequences.