Age-related differences in spontaneous trait judgments from facial appearance

Abstract

We tested whether there are age-related declines in detecting cues to trustworthiness, a skill that has been demonstrated to be rapid and automatic in younger adults. Young (M age D 21.2 years) and older (M age D 70.15 years) adults made criminal appearance judgments to unfamiliar faces, which were presented at a duration of 100, 500 or 1,000 ms. Participants' response times and judgment confidence were recorded. Older were poorer than young adults at judging trustworthiness at 100 ms, and were slower overall in making their judgments. Further, the cues (i.e. perceptions of anger, trustworthiness and happiness) underlying criminality judgments were the same across age groups. Judgment confidence increased with increasing exposure duration for both age groups, while older adults were less confident in their judgments overall than their young counterparts. The implications are discussed.

Out of the Picture: Latinx and White Male Youths’ Facial Features Predict Their Juvenile Justice System Processing Outcomes

“…The dominance and trustworthiness indices were very strongly correlated, r (93) = −.82, p = .03, and a factor analysis confirmed that they all loaded onto the same factor (see Supplemental File for details). 1 Indeed, a recent data-driven approach found that these two dimensions are strongly linked to perceptions of a criminal appearance (Funk et al, 2017; c.f., Smailes et al, 2018).…”

“…The face perception literature has consistently demonstrated that people regularly make social judgments based on others’ appearances without any other supporting information, such as actual behaviors that would be more diagnostic of their internal states (Langlois et al, 2000). For instance, perceivers are quick to make judgments about an individual’s trustworthiness and criminality on the basis of their face alone (Jaeger et al, 2019; Klatt et al, 2016; Smailes et al, 2018). These face-based judgments are problematic because they are largely inaccurate, yet they have direct implications for a variety of outcomes (see Todorov et al, 2015).…”

Involuntary responses to facial cues as an indicator of personality type across age and culture

“…Given that in comparison with young adults, older adults tend to show a positivity bias where they interpret untrustworthy faces as more trustworthy and approachable, and do not differ in judgements of trustworthiness from faces for young and older adults (Castle et al, 2012;Smailes et al, 2018); we imply that facial cues about negatively perceived traits are known to be better remembered. In relation to facial memory, studies have reported that negative traits such as untrustworthiness are more memorable from faces (Bayliss & Tipper, 2006;Mealey, Daood, & Krage, 1996;.…”

“…Furthermore, studies on implicit and explicit memory have suggested that older adults tend to be better than younger adults with implicit memory (Gopie et al, 2011;Light & Singh, 1987). Additionally, studies have also reported that older adults tend to show a positivity bias where they interpret untrustworthy faces as more trustworthy and approachable in comparison with young adults and the ratings did not differ for judgements of trustworthiness across ages (Castle et al, 2012;Smailes et al, 2018). It has also been suggested that older adults remember positive information better than negative information (e.g., Charles, Mather, & Carstensen., 2003;Mather & Cartensen., 2003).…”

“…For example, older adults demonstrate a tendency to evaluate faces to be more trustworthy and less hostile with the bias marked extremely for threatening-looking faces or other negative stimuli (Bailey et al, 2013;Castle et al, 2012;Ruffman, Sullivan, & Edge, 2006;Zebrowitz et al, 2013). Furthermore, studies have demonstrated that older adults tend to perform poorer than younger adults in judgements of criminality (Smailes et al, 2018), aggressiveness (Boshyan, et al, 2014), and trustworthiness (Bailey et al, 2013). Overall, these studies have implied that older adults often exhibit poor personality judgements.…”