Similarities and Differences in Chinese and Caucasian Adults' Use of Facial Cues for Trustworthiness Judgments

Fen Xu,Fengling Ma,Rie Toriyama,Kang Lee,Dingcheng Wu,Shoji Itakura,Emmanuel Andreas Stamatakis

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0034859

Abstract

BackgroundAll cultural groups in the world place paramount value on interpersonal trust. Existing research suggests that although accurate judgments of another's trustworthiness require extensive interactions with the person, we often make trustworthiness judgments based on facial cues on the first encounter. However, little is known about what facial cues are used for such judgments and what the bases are on which individuals make their trustworthiness judgments.Methodology/Principal FindingsIn the present study, we tested the hypothesis that individuals may use facial attractiveness cues as a “shortcut” for judging another's trustworthiness due to the lack of other more informative and in-depth information about trustworthiness. Using data-driven statistical models of 3D Caucasian faces, we compared facial cues used for judging the trustworthiness of Caucasian faces by Caucasian participants who were highly experienced with Caucasian faces, and the facial cues used by Chinese participants who were unfamiliar with Caucasian faces. We found that Chinese and Caucasian participants used similar facial cues to judge trustworthiness. Also, both Chinese and Caucasian participants used almost identical facial cues for judging trustworthiness and attractiveness.Conclusions/SignificanceThe results suggest that without opportunities to interact with another person extensively, we use the less racially specific and more universal attractiveness cues as a “shortcut” for trustworthiness judgments.

Highlights

Extensive evidence has shown that attractive individuals are healthier and more likable than unattractive individuals [11,12,13,14], and tend to have and be deemed to have positive personality traits [14,15,16,17,18,19,20], including honesty [15] that is an important component of trustworthiness [2]. To test this attractiveness heuristic hypothesis, we examined the facial cues used for judging Caucasian faces’ trustworthiness and attractiveness by Caucasian participants who were naturally highly familiar with Caucasian faces and by Chinese participants who had no direct contact with Caucasian individuals
We confirmed that the trustworthiness judgments were highly reliable in both Chinese (Cronbach a = 0.98) and Caucasian (Cronbach a = 0.99) participants, and attractiveness judgments were highly reliable in both Chinese (Cronbach a = 0.97) and Caucasian (Cronbach a = 0.97) participants
We systematically examined the similarities and differences of facial cues in Caucasian and Chinese participants’ judgments of trustworthiness and attractiveness of Caucasian male faces

Summary

Introduction

All cultures in the world place paramount value on interpersonal trust. It has been suggested that the most critical time frame for establishing a trust relation is at the beginning of the two parties’ first encounter or interaction [3]. This is perhaps why first impressions play such an important role in our social lives (e.g., evaluation of political candidates [4,5]). Existing research suggests that accurate judgments of another’s trustworthiness require extensive interactions with the person, we often make trustworthiness judgments based on facial cues on the first encounter. Little is known about what facial cues are used for such judgments and what the bases are on which individuals make their trustworthiness judgments

Methods

Results

Conclusion