The Predictive Relationship Between Specific Facial Cues And Social Trait

Recently,several studies have proved that there is a significant relationship between facial width-to-height ratio(fWHR)and aggressive behavior(especially for males).The bigger the ratio is,the more aggressive he will be.However,it is still controversial about the validity and the repeatability.This research aimed to explore the relationship between the Chinese fWHR and aggression with the subjective rating method and reverse correlation(RC)classification method.The rating results showed that within each gender of faces,the fWHR is neither associated with the aggressive judgment or aggressive behavior(Study 1),nor correlated with trust or dominant judgments(Study 2).After controlling fWHR,the partial correlation between(left-side)facial height(lower-face/whole-face-height)and each three trait ratings(aggression,trust,and dominance)reached to statistical significance.Furthermore,both results of the opening questionnaire and the RC method(Study 3)showed that the eyes,the width of nasion(between two eyes)and the corner of mouth are more sensitive to the estimated of aggression.And when judging negative traits(aggression,angry and threatening),males are more easily to be referred as aggressive,angry,and danger.To sum up,in Chinese,fWHR cannot be used to predict estimated aggression/trust/dominance.Besides,left eye and the corner of mouth are more predictable to aggression.There is implicit gender bias when estimating aggression,with higher rating scale for males than females.