The Effects Of Facial Attractiveness And Trustworthiness On Altruistic Punishment Decisions Among 7-12 Years Old Elementary School Students

The present study investigated how facial characteristics affect altruistic punishment decision making in stealing and deception scenarios among elementary school students between 7-12 years old.In this study,we manipulated facial characteristics by varying the level of facial attractiveness and trustworthiness and used three types of facial images in the experiments: male faces with high attractiveness and high trustworthiness(HH condition);male faces with low attractiveness and high trustworthiness(LH condition)and male faces with low attractiveness and low trustworthiness(LL condition).Individual tests were adopted in the second-and fourth-grade participants while group tests were used in the sixth-grade participants.The results showed that:(1)In the HH condition,fewer fourth-grade participants found the main characters in the deception scenario were actually deceiving than the second-grade participants;in the LH,the main effect of ages became marginally significant;and finally in the LL condition,no significant differences were found.(2)Only in the LL condition,more fourth-grade participants tended to punish the main characters in either the stealing or the deception scenarios;(3)In the second-grade participants,the facial characteristics didn't affect punishment ratings;however,in the fourth-grade participants,the main characters in the stealing scenario were more severely punished when their faces were less attractive.(4)Neither facial attractiveness nor trustworthiness affected the conviction decision in the sixth-grade participants.(5)In the actual punishment rating decision,the sixth-grade participants punished the main characters in the stealing scenario more harshly when confronted with more attractive and trustworthy faces.The findings from this study indicated that the ability of utilizing facial characteristics grows with age among elementary school students.The effects of facial characteristics on altruistic punishment decision making varied in different scenarios.Eventually,the way in which facial information affects altruistic punishment judgment was not quite the same between lower and higher-grade elementary students.