Facial Trustworthiness Research Articles

面孔可信度对信任决策的影响

面孔可信度对信任决策的影响

Evaluation of facial trustworthiness in older adults: A positivity effect and its mechanism

Evaluation of facial trustworthiness in older adults: A positivity effect and its mechanism

The Value of Trustworthy Faces in Fundraising

The Value of Trustworthy Faces in Fundraising

The Relation Between Updated Implicit Evaluations and the Trust Game

Recent work has shown that people can update their implicit evaluations based on facial trustworthiness. However, do these updated implicit evaluations map onto subsequent decisions? We examined whether implicit evaluations based on faces but updated in light of new behavioral evidence uniquely predict responses in the trust game. Across six studies (N = 2,059), we measured participants’ initial implicit evaluations of a target based on the target’s face and then their updated implicit evaluations based on newly learned behavioral evidence. We then tested whether these updated implicit evaluations uniquely predicted (i.e., beyond explicit evaluations) responses in a hypothetical trust game. Although participants consistently based their initial evaluations on the face and updated their evaluations after learning new diagnostic information, their updated implicit evaluations did not uniquely predict their responses in the trust game. We discuss theoretical considerations in this article.

Effects of social context on facial trustworthiness judgments

Effects of social context on facial trustworthiness judgments

CFOs’ facial trustworthiness and bank loan contracts

Using a well-developed machine learning-based image processing algorithm, we investigate whether a bank considers the facial trustworthiness of the chief financial officer (CFO) of a borrower firm for loan contracts. Based on a large sample of public firms in the United States, our results show that banks tend to offer lower loan spreads and are less likely to use collateral for firms with more facially trustworthy CFOs. Further, the results hold when we control the chief executive officers' (CEOs') facial trustworthiness, implying that it is the CFOs who negotiate with the banks about loan contracts. The effect of CFOs' facial trustworthiness on bank loan contracts is more pronounced in small or young firms, and less pronounced for firms in financial distress. Our study adds to the literature on the determinants of bank loan costs and the influence of managers’ facial features on corporate finance and corporate governance.

Children's dynamic use of face- and behavior-based cues in an economic trust game.

Who do children trust? We investigated the extent to which children use face-based versus behavior-based cues when deciding whom to trust in a multiturn economic trust game. Children's (N = 42; aged 8 to 10 years; 31 females; predominantly White) trust decisions were informed by an interaction between face-based and behavior-based cues to trustworthiness, similarly to those of adults (N = 41; aged 17 to 48 years; 23 females; predominantly White). Facial trustworthiness guided children's investment decisions initially, such that they invested highly with trustworthy-looking partners and less with untrustworthy-looking partners. However, by the end of the trust game, after children had experienced game partners' fair or unfair return behavior, they overcame this bias and instead used partners' previous behavior to guide their trust decisions. Using partners' return behavior to guide decisions was the most rational strategy, because partners' facial trustworthiness was not an accurate cue to their actual trustworthiness. This dynamic use of different cues to trustworthiness suggests sophisticated levels of social cognition in children, which may reflect the social importance of trust impressions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Trustworthiness judgments and Borderline Personality Disorder: an experimental study on the interplay of happiness and trustworthiness appraisals and the effects of wearing face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany

BackgroundJudging positive emotional states or the trustworthiness of others is important for forming and maintaining social affiliations. Past studies have described alterations in these appraisal processes in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), which might have been exacerbated during the Covid-19 pandemic by the requirement to wear face masks. In the present study, we investigated in an online-survey a) whether social judgments are particularly strongly affected in individuals with BPD when they have to judge happiness and trustworthiness in facial stimuli covered by a mask, b) whether appraising a positive emotional state affects trustworthiness appraisals differentially in BPD and healthy individuals and c) whether social judgments are related to how individuals with BPD experience wearing masks during the pandemic.MethodsParticipants (67 HC, 75 BPD) judged happiness and trustworthiness of faces with calm expression with and without masks. Additionally, data on participants’ confidence in their judgments, the experience of the burden induced by wearing masks, the protective benefits of masks, and compliance to wearing masks were collected.ResultsHappiness and trustworthiness were evaluated less confidently and less intense in the BPD group compared to HC. Masks reduced happiness and trustworthiness ratings in both groups. Lower happiness appraisals contributed to lower trustworthiness appraisals except for those with BPD and low levels of symptom severity. Lower trustworthiness ratings were associated with a higher burden, attributing a lower benefit to masks and lower compliance with wearing masks in BPD.ConclusionsMasks do not exacerbate deficits in social judgments. However, lower trustworthiness appraisals in general were linked with more negative evaluations of wearing masks in the BPD group.Trial registrationThe aims and hypotheses were preregistered together with the design and planned analyses (https://aspredicted.org/f5du7.pdf). For findings of an additionally preregistered research question on the impact of adverse childhood experiences see supplementary material.

From the Viscera to First Impressions: Phase-Dependent Cardio-Visual Signals Bias the Perceived Trustworthiness of Faces

When we see new people, we rapidly form first impressions. Whereas past research has focused on the role of morphological or emotional cues, we asked whether transient visceral states bias the impressions we form. Across three studies (N = 94 university students), we investigated how fluctuations of bodily states, driven by the interoceptive impact of cardiac signals, influence the perceived trustworthiness of faces. Participants less often chose faces presented in synchrony with their own cardiac systole as more trustworthy than faces presented out of synchrony. Participants also explicitly judged faces presented in synchrony with their cardiac systole as less trustworthy. Finally, the presentation of faces in synchrony with participants’ cardiac diastole did not modulate participants’ perceptions of the faces’ trustworthiness, suggesting that the systolic phase is necessary for such interoceptive effects. These findings highlight the role of phasic interoceptive information in the processing of social information and provide a mechanistic account of the role of visceroception for social perception.

Trustworthiness perception is mandatory: Task instructions do not modulate fast periodic visual stimulation trustworthiness responses

Although it is often assumed that humans spontaneously respond to the trustworthiness of others' faces, it is still unclear whether responses to facial trust are mandatory or can be modulated by instructions. Considerable scientific interest lies in understanding whether trust processing is mandatory, given the societal consequences of biased trusting behavior. We tested whether neural responses indexing trustworthiness discrimination depended on whether the task involved focusing on facial trustworthiness or not, using a fast periodic visual stimulation electroencephalography oddball paradigm with a neural marker of trustworthiness discrimination at 1 Hz. Participants judged faces on size without any reference to trust, explicitly formed impressions of facial trust, or were given a financial lending context that primed trust, without explicit trust judgement instructions. Significant trustworthiness discrimination responses at 1 Hz were found in all three conditions, demonstrating the robust nature of trustworthiness discrimination at the neural level. Moreover, no effect of task instruction was observed, with Bayesian analyses providing moderate to decisive evidence that task instruction did not affect trustworthiness discrimination. Our finding that visual trustworthiness discrimination is mandatory points to the remarkable spontaneity of trustworthiness processing, providing clues regarding why these often unreliable impressions are ubiquitous.

Preferential looking studies of trustworthiness detection confound structural and expressive cues to facial trustworthiness

On encountering a stranger, we spontaneously attribute to them character traits (e.g., trustworthiness, intelligence) based on their facial appearance. Participants can base impressions on structural face cues—the stable aspects of facial appearance that support identity recognition–or expression cues, such as the presence of a smile. It has been reported that 6- to 8-month-old infants attend to faces that adults judge to be trustworthy in preference to faces judged untrustworthy. These results are striking because the face stimuli employed were ostensibly emotion neutral. Consequently, these preferential looking effects have been taken as evidence for innate sensitivity to structural face cues to trustworthiness. However, scrutiny of the emotion rating procedure used with adults suggests that the face stimuli employed may have been judged emotion neutral only when interleaved with more obvious examples of facial affect. This means that the faces may vary in emotional expression when compared to each other. Here, we report new evidence obtained from adult raters that the stimuli used in these studies confound trustworthiness and untrustworthiness with the presence of happiness and anger, respectively. These findings suggest that the preferential looking effects described in infants are compatible with a preference for positive facial affect and may not reflect early sensitivity to structural face cues to trustworthiness.

Facial Trustworthiness Perception Across the Adult Life Span.

Trust is crucial for successful social interaction across the life span. Perceiver age, facial age, and facial emotion have been shown to influence trustworthiness perception, but the complex interplay between these perceiver and facial characteristics has not been examined. Adopting an adult life-span developmental approach, 199 adults (aged 22-78 years) rated the trustworthiness of faces that systematically varied in age (young, middle-aged, and older) and emotion (neutral, happy, sad, fearful, angry, and disgusted) from the FACES Lifespan Database. The study yielded three key results. First, on an aggregated level, facial trustworthiness perception did not differ by perceiver age. Second, all perceivers rated young faces as the most trustworthy, and middle-aged and older (but not young) perceivers rated older faces as least trustworthy. Third, facial emotions signaling threat (fear, anger, and disgust) relative to neutral, happy, and sad expressions moderated age effects on facial trustworthiness perception. Findings from this study highlight the impact of perceiver and facial characteristics on facial trustworthiness perception in adulthood and aging and have potential to inform first impression formation, with effects on trait attributions and behavior. This publication also provides normative data on perceived facial trustworthiness for the FACES Lifespan Database.

Not lie detection but stereotypes: Response priming reveals a gender bias in facial trustworthiness evaluations

Using an innovative variant of the response-priming paradigm, ten Brinke et al. (2014) seemingly found evidence for unconscious lie detection. In the present study, however, we conducted a reanalysis of this experiment showing that the data can be explained better by the assumption of a gender bias in facial trustworthiness evaluations than by the assumption of unconscious lie detection abilities. To corroborate the hypothesis that female faces are subjectively perceived as more trustworthy than male faces, we conducted two response-priming experiments: Participants (Ns = 39 and 61) had to categorize target words as truth-related or lie-related. These words were preceded by male and female face primes explicitly rated as trustworthy or untrustworthy by an independent sample. First, categorization times showed that trustworthy-appearing faces biased responses towards “truth” and untrustworthy-appearing faces biased responses towards “lie”. Second, within the group of trustworthy-appearing faces, there was a gender effect with female faces biasing responses towards “truth” and male faces biasing responses towards “lie”. These results suggest that (a) trustworthiness evaluations are biased by face gender and that (b) trustworthiness evaluations can be measured with the response-priming paradigm.

Cross-dimensional assimilation effect in facial trustworthiness evaluation: The asymmetry of in-group favoritism under the moderation of socioeconomic status

<p indent="0mm">It is common for within-dimensional assimilation effect in the social evaluation of faces under social context. Recent studies have also found a cross-dimensional assimilation effect in the facial trustworthiness evaluation with the socioeconomic status (SES) background information as social context. However, whether the SES of evaluators moderates this cross-dimensional assimilation effect remains unclear, since the relationship between evaluators and evaluatees has largely been ignored in studies of the assimilation effect. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate whether the SES of evaluators moderates the impact of the SES background information for evaluated faces on facial trustworthiness evaluation, and thereby to explore the broader theoretical issue on the interaction between evaluator and evaluatee on assimilation effect. There were two phases in the experiment. In the first phase, participants completed a status-color association training task, to learn how to associate colored backgrounds (purple/blue) with different levels of SES (high-SES/low-SES). This was to enable the participants to accurately perceive the SES information of the evaluated faces based on the background color in the subsequent evaluative task. In the second phase, they completed a facial trustworthiness rating task that used a 100-point scale to evaluate the trustworthiness of the faces displayed on colored backgrounds indicating high- or low-SES (<italic>T</italic>_high-SES/<italic>T</italic>_low-SES). After that, the facial trustworthiness baseline (<italic>T</italic>₀) was also measured by presenting participants the isolated faces without the colored backgrounds. The cross-dimensional assimilation effect of SES information of evaluated faces on facial trustworthiness (<italic>T</italic>_change) was calculated as follows: <italic>T</italic>_change=<italic>T</italic>_high-SES–<italic>T</italic>₀ or <italic>T</italic>₀–<italic>T</italic>_low-SES. One-sample <italic>t</italic>-test analysis revealed that the presence of high/low SES background information for the evaluated faces led to the evaluators’ trustworthiness evaluation being closer to the faces’ SES background information. That is, both the high and low SES information for the evaluated faces led to a significant assimilation effect on facial trustworthiness evaluation. But the assimilation of low SES information among low-SES participants is non-significant. Furthermore, a 2 (SES background information for evaluated faces: High vs. low) × 2 (SES of evaluators: High vs. low) repeated-measures ANOVA of the <italic>T</italic>_change showed a significant interaction of evaluators and evaluatees’ SES. Simple effect analysis revealed that the assimilation of low-SES information on facial trustworthiness evaluation among low-SES participants is significantly smaller than that among high-SES participants, which was also supported by the item-based ANOVA analysis. In summary, the results of the experiment suggested: (1) Both high-SES and low-SES information for evaluated faces exerted an assimilation effect on facial trustworthiness evaluation; (2) the assimilation effect is moderated by the SES of evaluators with an asymmetry of the in-group favoritism among high-SES evaluators and low-SES evaluators. The present study also contributed to the literature on the assimilation effect, by showing that: (1) Assimilation effect can occur not only between context and evaluative targets in the within dimension but also in cross-dimensions; (2) the social relationship between evaluator and evaluatee should be taken into account when evaluating the assimilation effect of social context.

Factors influencing UK residents’ preferences in how psychologists present themselves online: a conjoint analysis during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in mental health issues in the UK and worldwide, yet many UK residents have not received the help they have needed. Earlier research has indicated that accommodating client preferences leads to better therapeutic outcomes, however, little is known about preferences in how psychologists present themselves online and what might facilitate or slow help-seeking individuals’ decision about whom to seek help from. Based on literature suggesting personal branding as an effective way for clients to choose between psychologists, we sought to investigate UK residents’ preferences for specialization and self-disclosure in online presentations of psychologists based on level of fear of COVID-19 and diagnostic status.MethodsA sample of 187 UK residents were surveyed mid-April 2020 and analyzed using a rating-based conjoint analysis with a fractional factorial design consisting of 22 profiles. Each profile consisted of six attributes (Years of experience, area of expertise, gender, self-disclosure, training institution and facial trustworthiness). Analyses of variance (ANOVA) were used to explore preferences for area of expertise and self-disclosure depending on fear of COVID-19. An independent sample t-test was done to explore preference for self-disclosure among diagnosed residents.ResultsThe conjoint model yielded a good fit (Kendall’s tau = .90, p < .001). Relative importance scores (RI) were highest for years of experience (RI = 28.84) and area of expertise (RI = 22.78). Residents with a high fear of COVID-19 preferred psychologists specialized in anxiety disorders and fear (also fear of COVID-19) more than residents with a low fear of COVID-19 (MD = .92, 95% CI = [.198, 1.64], p = .013). Residents with a high fear of COVID-19 also preferred self-disclosing psychologists more than residents with a low fear of COVID-19 (MD = 1.05, 95% CI = [.184, 1.92], p = .013). Diagnostic status was not associated with preference for self-disclosure.ConclusionsListing de facto specialization in psychologist profiles might facilitate prospective clients’ decision-making process. Self-disclosure appears to be important for some clients, but more research is warranted.

Untrusted under threat: on the superior bond between trustworthiness and threat in face-context integration

ABSTRACT The face is a powerful source to make inferences about one’s trustworthiness. Recent studies demonstrated that facial trustworthiness is influenced by the level of threat conveyed by the visual scene in which faces are embedded: untrustworthy-looking faces are more likely judged as untrustworthy when shown in threatening scenes. Here, we explore whether this face-context congruency effect is specific to the negative pole of the threat-trust domain. Experiment 1 (N = 89) focused on the differential impact of positive vs. negative face-context congruency within the domains of threat and trust. Negative congruency (i.e. untrustworthy-looking faces in threatening contexts) led to more extreme attributions as opposed to positive congruency (i.e. trustworthy-looking faces in reassuring contexts). Experiment 2 (N = 120) replicated these findings by further showing their domain-specificity. The negativity bias was found in the threat-trust domain, but not when extroverted- vs. introverted-looking faces appeared in happy vs. sad context scenes. Experiment 3 (N = 154, pre-registered) replicated the pattern observed in Experiment 1 while controlling for the extent to which both threatening and reassuring context stimuli were related to the human action. We discussed the theoretical implications of these results for understanding how contextual information is integrated into the evaluation of facial trustworthiness.

Age-Related Differences in Amygdala Activation Associated With Face Trustworthiness but No Evidence of Oxytocin Modulation.

The amygdala has been shown to be responsive to face trustworthiness. While older adults typically give higher face trustworthiness ratings than young adults, a direct link between amygdala response and age-related differences in face trustworthiness evaluation has not yet been confirmed. Additionally, there is a possible modulatory role of the neuropeptide oxytocin in face trustworthiness evaluation, but the results are mixed and effects unexplored in aging. To address these research gaps, young, and older adults were randomly assigned to oxytocin or placebo self-administration via a nasal spray before rating faces on trustworthiness while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. There was no overall age-group difference in face trustworthiness ratings, but older compared to young participants gave higher trustworthiness ratings to ambivalently untrustworthy-looking faces. In both age groups, lower face trustworthiness ratings were associated with higher left amygdala activity. A comparable negative linear association was observed in right amygdala but only among young participants. Also, in the right amygdala, lower and higher, compared to moderate, face trustworthiness ratings were associated with greater right amygdala activity (i.e., positive quadratic (U-shaped) association) for both age groups. Neither the behavioral nor the brain effects were modulated by a single dose of intranasal oxytocin administration, however. These results suggest dampened response to faces with lower trustworthiness among older compared to young adults, supporting the notion of reduced sensitivity to cues of untrustworthiness in aging. The findings also extend evidence of an age-related positivity effect to the evaluation of face trustworthiness.

Face Mask Reduces the Effect of Proposer's (Un)Trustworthiness on Intertemporal and Risky Choices.

Previous literature suggested that individuals increase temporal and risk discounting at the presence of a proposer whose face is perceived as untrustworthy, suggesting the activation of protective choice patterns. By the way, the COVID-19 pandemic has substantially transformed the way we interact with other people, even bringing us into situations where the face of the person making a proposal is not fully visible, because of the mask. With the current study, we aimed at verifying if the effect of proposer’s facial (un)trustworthiness on discounting behavior is modulated by mask wearing. In two different experiments, participants performed traditional delay and probability discounting tasks with masked proposers manipulated across trustworthiness levels. Results highlighted that, even after checking for subject-specific emotion recognition ability with masked faces, the presence of a masked untrustworthy proposer increases both delay and probability discounting parameters, although the effect is not statistically significant and smaller than the one detected at the presence of an untrustworthy proposer without a mask. These results suggest that the ability to perceive the proposer’s (un)trustworthiness is affected by the mask, with a consequent less strong effect of proposer’s (un)trustworthiness on choice behavior on both intertemporal and risky choices. Limits and possible implications are outlined and discussed.

Facial impression of trustworthiness biases statement credibility unless suppressed by facemask

The impression of trustworthiness based on someone’s facial appearance biases our subsequent behavior toward that subject in a variety of contexts. In this study, we investigated whether facial trustworthiness also biases the credibility of utterances associated with that face (H1). We explored whether this bias is mitigated by utterances eliciting reasoning, i.e. explanations (as opposed to factual statements; H2). Moreover, we hypothesized that overimposing facemasks on those faces could enhance/reduce utterance credibility due to social value of mask-wearing (H3), and that facemasks could counter the putative credibility bias introduced by facial trustworthiness (H4). If so, this may be either because facemasks remove the visual information necessary for trustworthiness impression (H4a), or because information is less salient, although it can be retrieved under different circumstances (H4b). An online study (N = 159) was conducted to test these hypotheses. In the first task, subjects saw 48 facial pictures coupled with one utterance and judged the truthfulness/falsity of this utterance. In the second task, they saw again 16 of the faces from the previous tasks and were asked to recall whether the associated utterance was true or false. Findings from the first task support H1 and H4, but not H2 and H3. However, in the second task, where the face is the only available cue, the credibility-mitigation bias exerted by facemask disappears, supporting H4b over H4a. Our results confirm the pervasivity of facial trustworthiness impressions in social cognition, and suggest that facemask can mitigate them, or at least their salience.

CEO facial trustworthiness and corporate governance

PurposeIn this paper the authors aim to argue that the existence of a strong corporate governance mechanism (a formal credibility-enhancing mechanism) and the presence of a more trustworthy-looking CEO (an informal credibility-enhancing mechanism) are substitutes.Design/methodology/approachBy using machine-learning-based facial-feature-point detection technique, the authors construct a proprietary facial-trustworthiness database for a large-scale of CEOs in the US listed companies. First, the authors manually search for qualifying CEO image from websites and annual reports. Second, by following the neuroscience and psychology literature, the authors use the machine-learning-based face detector to identify the facial features in the CEO photos to calculate a rich and reliable set of facial-trustworthiness measures. The authors then construct a composite facial-trustworthiness index for each CEO. After obtaining accounting data, the authors’ final sample comprises 16,201 firm-year observations for 3,186 CEOs in the sample period of 2000-2018.FindingsThe results of the authors’ regression analyses show a negative association between board monitoring intensity and CEOs' facial trustworthiness, indicating that board directors may factor CEOs' facial trustworthiness into their monitoring decisions. Moreover, the authors find that these results are mainly driven by CEOs whose tenure is below the third quartile (i.e. eight years). The authors further find stronger results for externally hired CEOs than internally promoted CEOs. Finally, the authors’ results remain robust when using change models or subsample of CEO photos in recent years.Originality/valueFirst, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that adopts a large sample to provide systematic evidence on the directors' use of facial trustworthiness. This study extends the literature by documenting the impacts of CEOs' individual characteristics on the board monitoring intensity. Second, the results of this study emphasized the important role of perceptions based on executives' facial appearance in firm valuation, executive compensation and audit fee, and by presenting empirical evidence that CEOs' facial trustworthiness affects board monitoring intensity. Third, this study responds to the call for research on personalized trust by Hsiehet al.(2020).