![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
We present three studies examining whether male facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is correlated with racial prejudice and whether observers are sensitive to fWHR when assessing prejudice in other people. Our results indicate that males with a greater fWHR are more likely to explicitly endorse racially prejudicial beliefs, though fWHR was unrelated to implicit bias. Participants evaluated targets with a greater fWHR as more likely to be prejudiced and accurately evaluated the degree to which targets reported prejudicial attitudes. Finally, compared with majority-group members, racial-minority participants reported greater motivation to accurately evaluate prejudice. This motivation mediated the relationship between minority- or majority-group membership and the accuracy of evaluations of prejudice, which indicates that motivation augments sensitivity to fWHR. Together, the results of these three studies demonstrate that fWHR is a reliable indicator of explicitly endorsed racial prejudice and that observers can use fWHR to accurately assess another person’s explicit prejudice.
References
Section:
| Ambady, N. (2010). The perils of pondering: Intuition and thin slice judgments. Psychological Inquiry, 21, 271–278. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Bernstein, M. J., Young, S. G., Brown, C. M., Sacco, D. F., Claypool, H. M. (2008). Adaptive responses to social exclusion: Social rejection improves detection of real and fake smiles. Psychological Science, 19, 981–983. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Brigham, J. C. (1993). College students’ racial attitudes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 23, 1933–1967. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Carré, J. M., McCormick, C. M. (2008). In your face: Facial metrics predict aggressive behaviour in the laboratory and in varsity and professional hockey players. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275, 2651–2656. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Carré, J. M., McCormick, C. M., Mondloch, C. J. (2009). Facial structure is a reliable cue of aggressive behavior. Psychological Science, 20, 1194–1198. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Carré, J. M., Morrissey, M. D., Mondloch, C. J., McCormick, C. M. (2010). Estimating aggression from emotionally neutral faces: Which facial cues are diagnostic? Perception, 39, 356–377. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Dienstbier, R. A. (1970). Positive and negative prejudice: Interactions of prejudice with race and social desirability. Journal of Personality, 38, 198–215. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Dovidio, J. F., Kawakami, K., Gaertner, S. L. (2002). Implicit and explicit prejudice and interracial interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 62–68. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Eisenegger, C., Haushofer, J., Fehr, E. (2011). The role of testosterone in social interaction. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15, 263–271. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Fard, S. A. (2010). Effect of gender and social status on conformity. Psychological Research, 13, 30–50. Google Scholar | |
| Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P. (2007). Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 77–83. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Gaertner, S. L., McLaughlin, J. P. (1983). Racial stereotypes: Associations and ascriptions of positive and negative characteristics. Social Psychology Quarterly, 46, 23–30. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Greenwald, A. G., Nosek, B. A., Banaji, M. R. (2003). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 197–216. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Griskevicius, V., Goldstein, N. J., Mortensen, C. R., Cialdini, R. B., Kenrick, D. T. (2006). Going along versus going alone: When fundamental motives facilitate strategic (non)conformity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 281–294. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Hehman, E., Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F. (2010). Evaluations of presidential performance: Race, prejudice, and perceptions of Americanism. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 430–435. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Kenrick, D. T., Neuberg, S. L., Griskevicius, V., Becker, D. V., Schaller, M. (2010). Goal-driven cognition and functional behavior: The fundamental-motives framework. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 63–67. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Lorenzo, G. L., Biesanz, J. C., Human, L. J. (2010). What is beautiful is good and more accurately understood: Physical attractiveness and accuracy in first impressions of personality. Psychological Science, 21, 1777–1782. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Mehta, P. H., Beer, J. (2009). Neural mechanisms of the testosterone-aggression relation: The role of the orbitofrontal cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 2357–2368. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Neuberg, S. L., Fiske, S. T. (1987). Motivational influences on impression formation: Outcome dependency, accuracy-driven attention, and individuating processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 431–444. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Öhman, A., Flykt, A., Esteves, F. (2001). Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 466–478. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Özener, B. (2012). Facial width-to-height ratio in a Turkish population is not sexually dimorphic and is unrelated to aggressive behavior. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33, 169–173. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Plant, E. A., Devine, P. G. (1998). Internal and external motivation to respond without prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 811–832. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Plant, E. A., Devine, P. G. (2009). The active control of prejudice: Unpacking the intentions guiding control efforts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 640–652. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Pound, N., Penton-Voak, I. S., Surridge, A. K. (2009). Testosterone responses to competition in men are related to facial masculinity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276, 153–159. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Preacher, K. J., Curran, P. J., Bauer, D. J. (2006). Computational tools for probing interaction effects in multiple linear regression, multilevel modeling, and latent curve analysis. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 31, 437–448. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Preacher, K. J., Selig, J. P. (2012). Advantages of Monte Carlo confidence intervals for indirect effects. Communication Methods and Measures, 6, 77–98. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Rhodes, G., Zebrowitz, L. A., Clark, A., Kalick, S. M., Hightower, A., McKay, R. (2001). Do facial averageness and symmetry signal health? Evolutionary Human Behavior, 22, 31–46. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Richeson, J. A., Shelton, J. N. (2005). Brief report: Thin slices of racial bias. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 75–86. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Rule, N. O., Ambady, N., Adams, R. B., Macrae, C. N. (2008). Accuracy and awareness in the perception and categorization of male sexual orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1019–1028. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Rule, N. O., Garrett, J. V., Ambady, N. (2010). Places and faces: Geographic environment influences the ingroup memory advantage. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 343–355. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Sell, A., Cosmides, L., Tooby, J., Sznycer, D., von Rueden, C., Gurven, M. (2009). Human adaptations for the visual assessment of strength and fighting ability from the body and face. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276, 575–584. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Shriver, E. R., Hugenberg, K. (2010). Power, individuation, and the cross-race recognition deficit. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 767–774. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Stirrat, M., Perrett, D. I. (2010). Valid facial cues to cooperation and trust: Male facial width and trustworthiness. Psychological Science, 21, 349–354. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Swaddle, J. P., Reierson, G. W. (2002). Testosterone increases perceived dominance but not attractiveness in human males. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 269, 2285–2289. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Todorov, A., Mandisodza, A. N., Goren, A., Hall, C. C. (2005). Inferences of competence from faces predict election outcomes. Science, 308, 1623–1626. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Valla, J. M., Ceci, S. J., Williams, W. M. (2011). The accuracy of inferences about criminality based on facial appearance. The Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 5, 66–91. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Van Bavel, J. J., Packer, D. J., Cunningham, W. A. (2011). Modulation of the fusiform face area following minimal exposure to motivationally relevant faces: Evidence of in-group enhancement (not out-group disregard). Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 3343–3354. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Verdonck, A., Gaethofs, M., Carels, C., de Zegher, F. (1999). Effect of low-dose testosterone treatment on craniofacial growth in boys with delayed puberty. European Journal of Orthodontics, 21, 137–143. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Weston, E. M., Friday, A. E., Lio, P. (2007). Biometric evidence that sexual selection has shaped the hominin face. PloS ONE, 2, e710. Retrieved from http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000710 Google Scholar | |
| Wingfield, J. C., Lynn, S. E., Soma, K. K. (2001). Avoiding the “costs” of testosterone: Ecological bases of hormone- behavior interactions. Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 57, 239–251. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI |
