Trustworthiness and Individual Differences The Impact Males Facial Structure (Width-to-Height Ratio) Can Have on Social Attributions of Others

Abstract

People quickly develop opinions about others' personalities and intentions based solely on appearance and cognitive abilities, which can have serious consequences. The objective facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) has been associated with social attributions of trustworthiness, with men who have wider faces being viewed as less trustable than men with narrower faces.In this investigation, we examine the relationship between fWHR and three crucial components of perceived trustworthiness: perceived benevolence, perceived ability, and perceived integrity, with the goal of better understanding this finding. There are two experiments in my research, both within-subject experiments, using a within-subject t-test to analyze data. We will measure individuals' different judgements according to images of different fWHR. We expect that "people perceive men who are narrower-faced as being more likely to take a risk and become vulnerable to others" and "lower levels of counterproductive behaviour and having appropriate knowledge do not correlate with the facial width-to-height ratio." In addition, we anticipate that people with narrower faces will more frequently be perceived as having higher integrity than people with wider faces, whereas people with narrow faces and broad faces are equal in having higher benevolence or ability. These results suggest that fWHR influences people's social choices, which may pave the way for future research on facial appearance, perceived trustworthiness, and impression management.