IndexInfluence of impressionsThe conceptImplications of trustworthiness judgmentA well-told story teaches us that we only have one chance to make a first impression. From personal relationships to casual encounters, we base our judgments on information gathered spontaneously from the appearance of those in front of us. The focal point of this automatic process seems to be the face, considered “the window to the soul” (Zebrowitz, 1997). Following a Gibsonian approach to object perception (Gibson, 1979), Zebrowitz and Montepare argued in 2008 that qualities conveyed in facial structure can accurately reveal opportunities for social interaction and guide our responses even when they should be guided by more unbiased data. For example, asymmetrical faces are perceived as less intelligent than more symmetrical ones (Rhodes, Zebrowitz et al., 2001), and men identify women with masculine-looking characteristics as less bright, healthy, and sociable (Cunningham, 1986). plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Additionally, Secord et al. (1954) studied whether perceived physiognomic characteristics and perceived personality characteristics are related, laying the foundation for the modern approach to the topic. In their study, 146 college students rated 23 perceived physiognomic traits and 35 perceived personality traits from 24 photographs of individuals. The results showed that 93.9% of the predicted correlations between physiognomic and personality traits were in the expected direction, as well as a large correspondence between the similarity groups of both judgments; for example, faces perceived as distinct, intelligent, and determined had thin lips and wrinkles around the eyes. These findings were consistent with physiognomic stereotypes, with a plausible psychological origin. Facial appearance can therefore be held responsible for a variety of behavioral responses. The next question concerns whether the formation of an impression must be a long and thoughtful process or whether it can occur in such a short period of time that it escapes the conscious mind. In 2006, Willis and Todorov created a series of five experiments to explore the minimal conditions necessary for forming an impression based on facial appearance, each focusing on a different trait (attractiveness, likeability, competence, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness), concluding that 100 ms of exposure to the stimulus is sufficient to gather a large amount of information in order to create the judgment. An additional presentation does not affect the initial judgment and can give greater confidence in the decision. However, further exposure can make the impression more negative, driven by a pronounced effect of positivity bias in a minimal information condition (Sears, 1983). The short time required and the accuracy of the impressions suggest that collecting information from the face is a complex operation. System 1 process: fast, intuitive and non-reflective (Todorov et al., 2005). Further research has shown that a minimum exposure of 39 ms is sufficient to create inference about the traits of a threatening face, with performance significantly above chance, although an exposure of 26 ms is not sufficient to gather a useful amount of information from the stimulus. ImpressionsOur impressions of others influence our behavioral response in a range of contexts, even if it is based on a very limited set of information and is created in a very short time frame; our evaluations can therefore predict important social outcomes such as profit, rank, and political election outcomes. In theNext paragraphs we will discuss three examples regarding the importance of impressions in three different scenarios. Research has shown that inferences from the faces of female CEOs can accurately predict their success (Rule & Ambady, 2009). In this experiment, the faces of the top 1-25 and bottom 25 female CEOs of the US Fortune 500 list were rated by 90 participants on competence, dominance, likability, facial maturity, and trustworthiness on a Likert-type scale. 7 points. In the second part of the study, the financial performances of companies led by CEOs were obtained and compared with trait ratings. Results indicated that competence and leadership scores were highly correlated with company profits [r(14)=.52, p=.04; r(14)=.60, p=.01], thus confirming that leaders perceived as more successful actually led successful companies. Mazur et al. investigated in their 1984 study whether the physical appearance of male cadets could influence social mobility in the military ranks, building on previous research that had shown that males are perceived as dominant or submissive individuals, focusing on particular characteristics such as facial features facial appearance, height, and an athletic physique (usually associated with a dominant personality). Using the West Point class of 1950 yearbook as a reference, they were able to obtain facial portraits of the graduating cadets, close approximations of their height and athletic ability, and military ranks while at the academy. The faces were shown to 20-40 judges who rated them on a scale from 1 (very submissive) to 7 (very dominant), and a substantial correlation was found between the cadets' facial appearance and their final military rank while they were at West Point. , demonstrating that dominant-looking men advance to higher ranks in the military hierarchy than submissive-looking men. The study was later replicated in 1996 by Mueller and Mazur, because it was later found that cadets' facial dominance was not related to their career ranks in the 1984 study. The missing information related to the cadets' final rank in the registry of 1980 were integrated with a questionnaire sent to the men in question, investigating new variables such as war school diploma. The final results showed that cadets' facial dominance was once again the most important variable and, while still unrelated to their mid-career ranks, was related to late-career promotions, 20 or more years after the portraits were taken . compared to previous examples, inferences about competence have been shown to predict political election outcomes. Possibly 2005 Todorov experiment Rapid judgments of competence based solely on candidates' facial appearance can predict gubernatorial election outcomes (Ballew & Todorov, 2007). To test this hypothesis, in the first experiment participants were presented with the faces of the winner and runner-up from 89 election campaigns and had to decide who was more competent in three different conditions: 100 ms exposure, 250 ms exposure and unlimited time exposure. . Additionally, participants were asked to make a binary choice (choosing only which candidate was more competent), a judgment of competence on a 9-point scale, and whether or not they recognized the candidate. If the final answer had been yes, the trial would have been excluded to ensure impartiality. The results showed that fast, simple, binary competence judgments over a time span of just 100 ms could accurately predict the outcome of elections and that additional exposure did not improve performance.forecasts. In the second experiment, participants were explicitly asked to deliberate and make good judgments; this addition significantly increased response times and reduced the predictive accuracy of judgments, adding noise to automatic trait judgments and thus reducing prediction accuracy. In a final experiment, data collected before the 2006 elections regarding competence judgments effectively predicted 68.6 percent of gubernatorial races and 72.4 percent of Senate races when comparing a Republican and a Democratic candidate. , further suggesting that a quick and unreflective judgment of competence inferred from a candidate's face can influence voting decisions and predict electoral outcomes. The concept“We look at a person and a certain impression of his character immediately forms in us. Just a look, a few words said to tell us a very complex story. We know that such impressions are formed with remarkable rapidity and with great ease. Subsequent observation may enrich or disrupt our first vision, but we cannot prevent its rapid growth any more than we can avoid perceiving a given visual object or hearing a melody. We also know that this process, while often imperfect, is also sometimes extraordinary.” (SE Asch, 1946). Solomon Asch, one of the founding fathers of social psychology, provides us with an early but accurate definition of the process that creates an impression of an individual, a rapid but complex inference that guides us toward a future behavioral response. The face is therefore our first means of obtaining information on a person's emotional and mental state (Todorov & Oosterhof, 2011), with the consequent inclination to "read too much into the human face". This suggests that social perception of faces can be modeled to further understand which differences in facial structure lead to inferences based on physical appearance. In this regard, a data-driven approach was chosen to create a statistical face representation model, used to extract the subtle alterations in facial features that cause changes in social perceptions. The authors used the “space face” model (Blanz, & Vetter, 1999) implemented in Facegen (www.facegen.com), highlighting 50 dimensions for the shape of the face and 50 dimensions for the reflectance of the face (brightness, color and texture variations on the surface map of the face), represented by the corresponding vector. For each dimension, five versions of each face were used, modeled to increase or decrease their perceived value. These social dimensions can reveal the facial cues that lead to specific social judgments. In the case of trustworthiness, when its vector value is increased the face seems to express more positive emotions. Further relevant information on the importance of trustworthiness judgments comes from the 2013 study by Todorov et al., which extends previous research by creating 7 databases each containing 25 identities linked to a single social judgment: attractiveness, competence, dominance, extraversion, agreeableness, threat and reliability, selected because they are used spontaneously by people to describe unfamiliar faces. Each identity was manipulated to take on 7 different dimensional values, ranging from +3 to -3 with 1 SD varying between each range for a total of 175 stimuli in each database. The models account for at least 75% of the variance in all judgments, fitting each social judgment particularly well. In the case of reliability, increasing the value of the SD interval results in a greater perception of its presence, so much so that faces with a +3 SD value are perceived as more reliable than the others. Thank you.