People can make trustworthiness judgements based on facial characteristics. However, the previous findings regarding on whether facial age influences interpersonal trust are inconsistent. Using the trust game, the current study investigated the interactions of facial age with attractiveness and emotional expression in regarding to trustworthiness judgements. In experiments 1 & 2, younger participants were asked to invest in either younger or older faces that were shown for 2000 ms and 33 ms respectively. The results showed that people trust the faces of older people more than they do of younger people. There was also an interaction between facial age and attractiveness. The participants invested more money in older faces than in younger faces only when they perceived the faces to be less attractive. However, the interaction between facial age and emotional expression was inconsistent in the two experiments. The participants invested more money in older faces that were shown for 2000 ms when they perceived the happy and sad emotions, but they invested more money in older faces that were shown for 33 ms when they perceived the happy emotion. These results reveal that people make trustworthiness judgements based on multiple facial cues when they view strangers of different ages.
People can judge a stranger's trustworthiness at first glance solely based on facial appearance. Moreover, the trust behaviors people exhibit toward strangers differ depending on perceived trustworthiness from faces. Research has found that people have different risk preferences according to the gain or loss frame. Therefore, we hypothesized that the risk decisions are differently affected by facial trustworthiness in different frames. We conducted three experiments in which we asked participants to make risk decisions in the gain frame or loss frame. The results revealed that facial trustworthiness had a significant effect on risk decisions in the gain frame. However, the effect was attenuated in the loss frame. These results suggest that people are more willing to take risks in the gain frame if individuals look more trustworthy than those who look untrustworthy.
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