Premium
What's in a picture? The impact of face‐ism on trait attribution
Author(s) -
Schwarz Norbert,
Kurz Eva
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2420190405
Subject(s) - psychology , attribution , stimulus (psychology) , trait , perception , social psychology , face perception , impression formation , social perception , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , computer science , programming language
Abstract Previous research indicated a ‘face‐ism’ bias in media depictions of men and women: me media tend to represent men with their faces, whereas women's depictions include larger parts of their bodies, rendering their faces less prominent. To explore the impact of facial prominence on impression formation, male and female subjects received either full‐body or portrait‐style photographs, made from the same negatives, of male and female stimulus persons of different likeability. Male and female subjects evaluated all stimulus persons as more competent (intelligent, assertive, ambitious, etc.) if presented with a high (portrait) rather than a low (full‐body photograph) degree of facial prominence. This main effect of facial prominence was not qualified by interaction effects with any of the other variables. PIUS, the media's face‐ism bias is likely to contribute to a perception of men as more competent than women. In addition, female but not male subjects also evaluated stimulus persons as more expressive and likeable under conditions of high facial prominence, reflecting a global positive effect of facial prominence.