Overgeneralizing emotions: Facial width-to-height revisited.

Abstract

All authors developed the study concept together, and all contributed to the study design. L.S. and P.S. performed data acquisition and preprocessing in Study 1 supervised by S.W. who also coordinated and supervised data acquisition in Studies 1b, 2, and 3. Data analysis in Study 1 was prepared by L.S. and P.S., and was carried out and extended to Studies 2 and 3 by S.W. Manuscript and revisions were written by S.W. with L.S. and P.S. providing editorial assistance. All authors checked and approved the final version of the manuscript. Paper accepted for publication by Emotion (August 2021).

Testing perceivers’ accuracy and accuracy awareness when forming personality impressions from faces

“…As a consequence, judgments of people who display a smile (e.g., that they are warm and extraverted) are overgeneralized to people whose natural facial appearance resembles a smile. Studies examining the determinants of personality impressions have yielded support for these predictions, showing that perceivers rely on resemblances to emotional expressions when judging others (Adams et al, 2012;Jaeger & Jones, 2021;Windmann et al, 2021).…”

“…Many facial cues, including facial width-to-height ratio, are intercorrelated, making it difficult to isolate the unique effect of a certain cue on impression formation. Studies that examined a wider range of facial features did not find unique associations between facial width-to-height ratio and impressions (Jaeger & Jones, 2021;Windmann et al, 2021)…”