First Impressions and Reading Faces

A few days ago my husband and I went on a date to the opera. When the show was finished, we found that someone had inserted a business card onto the windshield of our car. It said in bold letters: Date a Model. Thinking it was a sleazy company that offered hot models for hire, we checked out their website just for fun in hopes of scoping out some attractive men and women. We were tricked!

It turns out that the company actually provides personal development services such as image consultation, dating and shopping advice as well as overall confidence-building. The website claims that “the law of attraction” is what brings people to their site. Of course with a statement like “Date a Model,” most people would expect some eye candy.

As horrible as it sounds, the truth is that in general, attractive people have an upper hand in significant areas of life (there are numerous studies that prove this point). Everyone can remember the hot popular girls getting away with murder in high school. Attractive people are also perceived to be more outgoing, intelligent and healthy. We’ve all at some point pined for a beautiful creature in hopes of making him/her our boyfriend/girlfriend. Our significant others are reflections of ourselves; the prettier he/she is, the better we look by association. Why else do older men trade in their wives for much younger women, or vice versa?

Making a Judgment in 100 Milliseconds

The beauty industry thrives on our insecurities. We spend countless hours primping to fit a societal ideal of what an attractive person should be. Herein lies the importance of first impressions. A Princeton University research article by Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov illustrate that it takes a mere 100 ms to form an impression on someone. The exposure of a series of photographs of men and women was used to form 5 types of personality judgments: attractiveness, trustworthiness, likeability, competence, and aggressiveness.

The study showed that longer exposure (500 ms) to a series of photographs only boosted the confidence of the previously assessed character trait. Trustworthiness was the trait most quickly and confidently assessed; this is believed to be an evolutionary instinct in which we must quickly assess the dependability of others. With such snap judgments made about us everyday, it is no wonder we must put our best face forward!

Personality Traits by Facial Features

The science of reading faces also known as physiognomy has been practiced by the ancient Greeks and Chinese. While this practice has not always been widely accepted, it is having a bit of a revival in recent years. A number of studies have been done which illustrate that people not only infer personal characteristics from facial features, they also act upon them; for example, studies show that baby-faced adults often receive lighter judgments in court than their more mature-looking counterparts, competent-looking people are more likely to get elected to public office and dominant looking people often helm profitable companies. However is there any truth to our quick judgments?

Apparently somewhat, yes. In general, people perceive wider faces to be more aggressive. Researchers Justin Carré and Cheryl McCormick of Brock University in Ontario, Canada conducted a study to see if there is a link between the faces of hockey players and their overall aggression level. The results show that players with a wide cheekbone distance in comparison to the distance between their brow and upper lip had more penalty time for violent acts such as slashing towards other players. This has been linked to an increased testosterone level in wider-faced men.

Beware as faces can often be deceiving, especially those baby-faced darlings. Many people are quick to write-off baby-faced men as soft, naïve and less successful. However these presumptions are usually false—baby-faced men often over-compensate for their looks and generally end up with a higher education, excel through military ranks, and are more aggressive. Case in point: the notorious baby-faced gangster, Al Capone.

Face Reading

So while the scientists are busy analyzing and correlating results, let’s have some fun with some basic Chinese face reading techniques.

When reading a face, draw an imaginary vertical line down the middle. The left-hand side represents the masculine, or yang; the right-hand side represents the feminine, or yin. No two sides are alike. When looking at a mirror, if the right side of your face is fuller, you are more concerned with the women in your life and conversely, if the left side is fuller, you care more about the males.

Nose:
This symbolizes wealth. Nostrils that are more open suggest a spender, whereas nostrils that are more closed and not visible when looking straight on imply a saver.

Eyes:
Rounder eyes suggest more emotional depth and conversely eyes which appear straighter indicate a more logical nature. An optimist is said to have upward angled eyes and brows and a pessimist has eyes and brows which slope down.

Mouth:
Thin lips belong to those who love to argue and have a quick mind and excellent communication skills. Fuller lips indicate one who is more emotional and friendly.

Ears:
Look out for ears that lie close to the head as this is a sign of a good listener. The Chinese believe that long, thick ears are good luck. High set ears (ones that line up above the eyebrows) indicate intelligence.

Making Faces

While there is such an emphasis on outside appearances, we should not forget to look past the outer layer and dig deeper before casting judgments. I remember one high school teacher which a friend nick-named “Bitter Beer Face.” This teacher had a permanent frown plastered on his face and his expression was that of his namesake—like he just took a swig of something nasty. His cantankerous and strict nature did not make him popular amongst students.

Part way through the semester we found out that his son had committed suicide a few years back. This poor man’s inner turmoil reflected upon his face. It never occurred to us that there was a reason why he acted the way he did.

While I think it’s important to maintain your looks, it’s perhaps more imperative to take care of your inner health as the things bottled up inside will sooner or later find their way out.