Selfie warning: we judge character at a glance

30 July 2014 - 02:00 By ©The Daily Telegraph
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Image: ©lightwavemedia

It takes only a glance to assess others and to decide if they are beautiful or trustworthy, a study has found.

Eyes are judged as an instant indicator of youthful attractiveness, while being tanned is linked to masculinity, according to Tom Hartley and colleagues at the University of York in England.

For the study, they took the features of 1000 faces then asked people to judge them for various social traits.

Afterwards, they combined information about 65 physical attributes, such as eyebrow width, mouth area and cheekbone position, that showed 58% of first impressions are based just on appearance.

The scientists produced cartoon faces containing certain features that, based on their theory, would create a predictable reaction from subjects, including, for example, those that were deemed to denote approachability.

The cartoon faces were then used for an online survey - which showed that the faces were judged just as they had predicted.

"These traits can be 'read' from a glimpse as brief as 100 milliseconds or less, and brain activity appears to track social traits, such as trustworthiness, even when no explicit evaluation is required," the researchers said.

"This finding suggests that trait judgments are first impressions that are made automatically, likely outside of conscious control."

The scientists found that approachability is linked to the shape of the mouth.

They discovered masculinity is linked to structural features of the face, particularly eyebrow height, cheek gradient and eye gradient. A healthy or tanned skin tone is linked with masculinity.

And many of the features of the eye relate to youthful attractiveness.

Hartley said it was important to understand how judgments are made as they affected how people react to others socially.

This meant people should choose the selfies they posted online very carefully.

"People have asked my advice before, and I say to think before you put photos online that could be attached to your CV, dating sites, or on social media," he said.

"People said that we tend to judge a book by its cover, and it appears we do."

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