Viewing men's faces does not lead to accurate predictions of trustworthiness

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_8CA88CC5F789
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Viewing men's faces does not lead to accurate predictions of trustworthiness
Journal
Scientific Reports
Author(s)
Efferson C., Vogt S.
ISSN
2045-2322
Publication state
Published
Issued date
12/2013
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
3
Number
1
Language
english
Abstract
The evolution of cooperation requires some mechanism that reduces the risk of exploitation for cooperative individuals. Recent studies have shown that men with wide faces are anti-social, and they are perceived that way by others. This suggests that people could use facial width to identify anti-social men and thus limit the risk of exploitation. To see if people can make accurate inferences like this, we conducted a two-part experiment. First, males played a sequential social dilemma, and we took photographs of their faces. Second, raters then viewed these photographs and guessed how second movers behaved. Raters achieved significant accuracy by guessing that second movers exhibited reciprocal behaviour. Raters were not able to use the photographs to further improve accuracy. Indeed, some raters used the photographs to their detriment; they could have potentially achieved greater accuracy and earned more money by ignoring the photographs and assuming all second movers reciprocate.
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
14/02/2019 8:52
Last modification date
21/08/2019 6:16
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