A study by Zebrowitz, Hall, Murphy, and Rhodes found that judgments of intelligence from faces were more accurate than chance for images from childhood, puberty, and middle adulthood, but not more accurate than chance in adolescence or late adulthood.
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These findings highlight the pervasive and detrimental influence of attractiveness on accuracy in attributions.įor decades researchers have debated the accuracy in perceived intelligence and whether attractiveness is a valid cue to actual intelligence. argue that one of the reasons accurate estimations of intelligence are demonstrated in men but not women may be due to the stronger effect of the attractiveness halo in perceptions of female intelligence. It is important to note that a significant relationship between perceived and actual intelligence was only evident after statistically controlling for perceived attractiveness, though perceived attractiveness itself was not found to be a valid cue to actual intelligence. Kleisner, Chvatalova, and Flegr reported accurate perceptions of intelligence in men’s but not women’s faces. Accurate Perceptions of Intelligence and Attractiveness Halo The relationship seems to reflect a suppression effect, in which the suppressor (perceived attractiveness) is correlated with the other predictor variable (perceived health or intelligence), but is not related to the dependent variable (actual health or intelligence), so when this noise (relationship between attractiveness and perceived health or intelligence) is controlled for the accuracy in perceptions of actual health or intelligence is increased.
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The ‘attractiveness halo effect’ in which desired personality traits are ascribed to attractive people over unattractive people seems to influence the use of attractiveness as a cue when attempting to accurately perceive health or intelligence in faces and is in turn, limiting people’s accuracy. Indeed, when investigating the accuracy of perceived intelligence and of perceived health in faces it was found that accuracy was improved to a level above chance when controlling for attractiveness bias. Such research highlights potential accuracy in face perception and the relationship between limited accuracy in perceived traits and attractiveness. Also, research by Little, Burt, Penton-Voak and Perrett found that evaluators were differentially attracted to faces depending on personality traits desired in a partner that is, “if a trait is desired then faces perceived to possess that trait are found more attractive than faces which do not possess that trait” (p. Similarly, Penton-Voak, Pound, Little, and Perrett found that there was some limited accuracy in perceptions of extraversion, emotional stability, and openness to experience when presented with images of composite faces (combining the faces of people with the same personality). For instance, Kramer and Ward found that four of the Big Five personality traits, as well as physical health, were perceived with some limited accuracy from internal facial features alone and three of the Big Five traits were accurately perceived (just above chance) from just one side of the face. While frequently warned against ‘judging a book by its cover’, the field of face perception is filled with evidence that suggests that the face does contain a substantial amount of information for evaluators to infer traits.
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suggested that people regularly make judgements based on appearance and argued that “if humans were not biased to judge others on their appearance, they would not need to remind their children not to judge books by their covers” (p.