The Face of Social Networks: Naive Observers’ Accurate Assessment of Others’ Social Network Positions From Faces

Abstract

We examined whether, even at zero acquaintance, observers accurately infer others’ social network positions—specifically, the number and patterning of social ties (e.g., brokerage—the extent to which a person bridges disconnected people) and the trait impressions that support this accuracy. We paired social network data ( n = 272 professional school students), with naive observers’ ( n = 301 undergraduates) judgments of facial images of each person within the network. Results revealed that observers’ judgments of targets’ number of friends were predicted by the actual number of people who considered the target a friend (in-degree centrality) and that perceived brokerage was significantly predicted by targets’ actual brokerage. Lens models revealed that targets’ perceived attractiveness, dominance, warmth, competence, and trustworthiness supported this accuracy, with attractiveness and warmth most associated with perceptions of popularity and brokerage. Overall, we demonstrate accuracy in naive observers’ judgments of social network position and the trait impressions supporting these inferences.

White matter connectivity in brain networks supporting social and affective processing predicts real-world social network characteristics

“…The genetic basis of social network position characteristics may operate in part via individuals' passive characteristics, which influence how others behave toward them (e.g., their appearance). Consistent with this possibility, physical attractiveness has been shown to be predictive of social status, popularity, and social acceptance [28][29][30][31] , and people can somewhat accurately infer aspects of strangers' social network position characteristics (i.e., in-degree centrality and constraint) based on their physical appearance 32 . On the other hand, the genetic basis of social network position characteristics may also manifest through active characteristics-e.g., sociobehavioral tendencies that facilitate the occupation of certain kinds of social network positions 13 .…”

Person Perception, Meet People Perception: Exploring the Social Vision of Groups

“…Relatedly, one set of processes may be involved in visually extracting information about groups, which then intersects with processes associated with mentally representing and remembering those groups later. For example, some work has considered how individuals come to understand and represent relational systems and network connections within groups (e.g., social-network schemas) partly on the basis of information they glean automatically and visually (Alt et al, 2021;Brands, 2013;Casciaro et al, 1999;Kilduff & Krackhardt, 1994;Mobasseri et al, 2021;Smith et al, 2020;Yu & Kilduff, 2020). Such information about specific relationships and the overall group structure likely complements people's knowledge of who belongs in the group or subgroups, entitativity, and fault lines that may exist within the group, all of which is updated dynamically over time.…”

Bridging people and perspectives: General and language-specific social network structure predict mentalizing across diverse sociolinguistic contexts.

“…As the total number of shortest paths that go through the respondent grows, their betweenness centrality, or overall network influence and exposure to diverse perspectives, grows. Naïve experimental perceivers seem aware of the social importance of network brokers, attributing more qualities of agency, leadership, and charisma to those in this influential position (Brands & Kilduff, 2013; Brands et al, 2015), and they can accurately identify real-world network brokers from simply looking at strangers’ faces (Alt et al, 2021).…”