Table of ContentsInfluence of ImpressionsThe ConceptThe Implications of Trustworthiness JudgmentsA well-told story teaches us that we only have one chance to make a first impression. From personal relationships to chance encounters, we base our judgments on information gathered spontaneously from the appearance of those standing before us. The central point of this automatism seems to be the face, considered “the window to the soul” (Zebrowitz, 1997). Following a Gibsonian approach to object perception (Gibson, 1979), Zebrowitz and Montepare stated in 2008 that qualities conveyed by facial structure can accurately reveal opportunities for social interaction and guide our responses even when they should be driven by more unbiased data. For example, asymmetrical faces are perceived as less intelligent than more symmetrical faces (Rhodes, Zebrowitz et al., 2001), and men identify women with masculine-looking features as less bright, healthy, and sociable (Cunningham, 1986).Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Additionally, Secord et al. (1954) investigated whether perceived physiognomic characteristics and perceived personality characteristics were related, thus laying the foundation for a modern approach to the subject. In their study, 146 students rated 23 perceived physiognomic traits and 35 perceived personality traits in photographs of 24 individuals. The results showed that 93.9% of the predicted correlations between physiognomic traits and personality traits were in the expected direction, in addition to a broad correspondence between the similarity groups of the two judgments; for example, faces perceived as distinguished, intelligent and determined had thin lips and wrinkles around the eyes. These results were consistent with physiognomic stereotypes, with a plausible psychological origin. Facial appearance can therefore be held responsible for a certain number of behavioral responses. The next question is whether the formation of an impression must be a long and thoughtful process or whether it can occur in such a short period of time that it escapes the conscious mind. In 2006, Willis and Todorov created a series of five experiments to explore the minimal conditions necessary for forming an impression based on facial appearance, each focusing on a different trait (attractiveness, likeability, competence, trustworthiness and aggression), concluding that a 100 ms exposure to the stimulus is enough to gather a large amount of information to create the judgment. Additional briefing does not affect the initial judgment and may provide more confidence in the decision. However, further exposure may make the impression more negative, due to a pronounced effect of positivity bias under a minimal information condition (Sears, 1983). The short time required and the accuracy of the prints suggest that gathering information from the face is a difficult task. System 1 process: fast, intuitive and thoughtless (Todorov et al., 2005). Further research has shown that a minimum exposure of 39 ms is sufficient to create a trait inference from a threatening face, with performance significantly above chance, although an exposure of 26 ms is not sufficient to gather a useful amount of information from the stimulus. impressionsOur impressions of others influence our behavioral response in a number of contexts, even if it is based on a very limited batch of information and is created in a very short period of time; ourAssessments can therefore predict important social outcomes such as profit, rank, and political election results. Three examples will be discussed in the following paragraphs regarding the importance of impressions in three different scenarios. Research has shown that inferences drawn from female CEOs' faces can accurately predict their success (Rule & Ambady, 2009). In this experiment, the faces of the top 1-25 and bottom 1-25 female CEOs of the US Fortune 500 list were rated by 90 participants on the basis of their competence, dominance, likeability, facial maturity and of their reliability on a 7-point Likert-type scale. In the second part of the study, the financial performance of CEO-guided companies was obtained and compared with the trait ratings. The results indicated that competence and leadership scores were highly correlated with company profits [r(14)=0.52, p=0.04; r(14)=0.60, p=0.01], thus confirming that managers perceived as more successful actually led successful companies.Mazur et al. asked in their 1984 study whether the physical appearance of male cadets could affect social mobility within the military ranks, based on previous research showing that men are perceived as dominant or submissive individuals, focusing on characteristics characteristics such as facial features, height, and an athletic physique (usually associated with a dominant personality). Using the West Point Class of 1950 yearbook as a reference, they were able to obtain the facial portraits of the graduating cadets, close approximations of their height and athletic prowess, as well as the military ranks when they were at the 'academy. The faces were shown to 20 to 40 judges who rated them on a scale of 1 (very submissive) to 7 (very dominant), and a substantial correlation between the cadets' facial appearance and their final military rank at West Point was found. been found. , proving that men with a dominant appearance achieve higher ranks in the military hierarchy than those with a submissive appearance. The study was later replicated in 1996 by Mueller and Mazur, as cadets' facial dominance was found to be unrelated to their later ranks. career in the 1984 study. Missing information regarding the final ranks of cadets from the 1980 registry was incorporated into a questionnaire sent to the men in question, investigating new variables such as graduation from a school of war. The final results showed that cadets' facial dominance was again the most important variable and, although it was still not related to their rank at mid-career, it was linked to promotions at the end of their career. 20 years or more after the portraits were taken. Compared to previous examples, competence inferences have been shown to predict political election outcomes. Finally experimented 2005 Todorov Quick judgments of competence based solely on candidates' facial appearance can predict gubernatorial election outcomes (Ballew & Todorov, 2007). To test this hypothesis, in the first experiment, the faces of the winner and runner-up of the 89 election campaign were presented to participants, who had to decide who was more competent in three different conditions: 100 ms exposure, 250 ms and unlimited exposure over time. Additionally, participants were asked to express a binary choice (choosing only which candidate was more competent), a judgment of competence on a 9-point scale, and whether or not they recognized the candidate. If the final answer wasaffirmative, the trial was excluded to guarantee impartiality. The results showed that quick, simple, binary skill judgments in a time frame as fast as 100 ms could accurately predict the election outcome, and that additional exposure did not improve the predictions. In the second experiment, participants were explicitly asked to deliberate. and make a good judgment; this addition significantly increased their response times and reduced the predictive accuracy of judgments, adding noise to automatic trait judgments and thereby reducing prediction accuracy. In a final experiment, data collected before the 2006 elections regarding competence judgments effectively predicted 68.6% of gubernatorial races and 72.4% of Senate races when a Republican candidate and a Democratic candidate were compared, further suggesting that a quick, unreflective judgment of competence inferred from a candidate's face can influence voting decisions and predict election outcomes. The concept “We look at a person and immediately a certain impression of his character is formed in us. A look, a few words are enough to tell us a story on a very complex subject. We know that such impressions are formed with remarkable rapidity and with great ease. Subsequent observations may enrich or disrupt our first view, but we can no more prevent its rapid development than we can avoid perceiving a given visual object or hearing a melody. We also know that this process, although often imperfect, is also sometimes extraordinary. (SE Asch, 1946). Solomon Asch, one of the founding fathers of social psychology, gives us an early but precise definition of the process that creates an impression of an individual, a quick but complex inference that guides us toward a future behavioral response. The face is therefore our primary medium for obtaining information about a person's emotional and mental state (Todorov & Oosterhof, 2011), resulting in the tendency to “read too much into the human face”. This suggests that social perception of faces can be modeled to better understand what differences in facial structure lead to inferences based on physical appearance. For this, a data-driven approach was chosen to create a statistical model of facial representation, used to extract subtle alterations in facial features that cause changes in social perceptions. The authors used the “space face” model (Blanz, & Vetter, 1999) implemented in Facegen (www.facegen.com), highlighting 50 dimensions for the shape of the face and 50 dimensions for the reflectance of the face (brightness, color and texture variations on the face surface map), represented by the corresponding vector. Five versions of each face were used for each dimension, modeled to increase or decrease its perceived value. These social dimensions can reveal the facial cues that lead to specific social judgments. In the case of reliability, when its vector value increases, the face seems to express more positive emotions. Other relevant information regarding the importance of reliability judgments comes from the 2013 study by Todorov et al., expanding previous research by creating 7 databases each. containing 25 identities linked to a single social judgment: attractiveness, competence, dominance, extroversion, sympathy, threat and reliability, selected because spontaneously used by people to describe unfamiliar faces. Each identity was manipulated to take 7 different dimension values, ranging ».