Why is the literature on first impressions so focused on White faces?

Abstract

We spontaneously attribute to strangers a wide variety of character traits based on their facial appearance. While these first impressions have little or no basis in reality, they exert a strong influence over our behaviour. Cognitive scientists have revealed a great deal about first impressions from faces including their factor structure, the cues on which they are based, the neurocognitive mechanisms responsible, and their developmental trajectory. In this field, authors frequently strive to remove as much ethnic variability from stimulus sets as possible. Typically, this convention means that participants are asked to judge the likely traits of White faces only. In the present article, we consider four possible reasons for the lack of facial diversity in this literature and find that it is unjustified. Next, we illustrate how the focus on White faces has undermined scientific efforts to understand first impressions from faces and argue that it reinforces socially regressive ideas about ‘race’ and status. We go on to articulate our concern that opportunities may be lost to leverage the knowledge derived from the study of first impressions against the dire consequences of prejudice and discrimination. Finally, we highlight some promising developments in the field.

The effect of facial occlusion on facial impressions of trustworthiness and dominance

“…There are several limitations that should be considered while interpreting the current results. Our stimulus sets were entirely composed of White faces (see Cook & Over, 2021 ). Although this helped us to reduce the complexity of our study designs, it does restrict the generalizability of these effects to the full range of facial ethnicities (but see Oldmeadow & Koch, 2021 , for similar work incorporating face ethnicity).…”

The cultural learning account of first impressions

“…Contrary to the prevailing view at the time, TIM [21][22][23][24] proposed that automatic first impressions are the result of associative mappings acquired by individuals during the course of their lifetime that connect perceptual descriptions of facial appearance (points or regions in face space [ Box 1]) with representations of the potential trait profiles that others may possess (locations in trait space [25][26][27][28]). These mappings are acquired via domain-general associative processes following exposure to correlated face-trait experience; i.e., learning episodes where certain facial features or feature configurations are predictive of particular trait profiles.…”

“…It is likely that evidence of systematic individual and cultural differences in first impressions has been artificially restricted by the prevailing methodology in this field. Traditionally, first impressions research has been conducted in WEIRD cultures [21] and much of this work has focussed on the trait judgements made about White faces [24]. Some authors have also prevented people of colour from participating in studies as raters [76][77][78].…”

“…Consequently, the focus on White face stimuli and White and WEIRD participants has likely inflated the apparent levels of inter-rater agreement [21,24]. For detailed discussion of these issues, including suggestions for future research, see Cook and Over [24].…”

Pathogen disgust sensitivity: Individual differences in pathogen perception or pathogen avoidance?

“…The current design may have overestimated the effect of pathogen cues by holding other cues that people would normally rely on constant. Moreover, given the widespread focus on white faces in the impression formation literature (Cook & Over, 2021), it would be valuable to explore the generalizability and variability of pathogen avoidance mechanisms in response to more diverse sets of targets.…”