Do We See Masculine Faces as Competent and Feminine Faces as Warm? Effects of Sexual Dimorphism on Facial Perception
Previous research on non-facial features demonstrated that masculinity and femininity correlated highly with perceived competence and warmth, respectively. Several studies focused on dimorphic facial cues and found an association between masculine faces and competence. However, there’s no study expl...
Main Authors: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
SAGE Publishing
2020-11-01
|
Series: | Evolutionary Psychology |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704920980642 |
id |
doaj-3e708817d3c0459f85f2c62c0f574efc |
---|---|
record_format |
Article |
spelling |
doaj-3e708817d3c0459f85f2c62c0f574efc2020-12-25T01:03:37ZengSAGE PublishingEvolutionary Psychology1474-70492020-11-011810.1177/1474704920980642Do We See Masculine Faces as Competent and Feminine Faces as Warm? Effects of Sexual Dimorphism on Facial PerceptionFangfang Wen0Bin Zuo1Shuhan Ma2Yian Xu3John D. Coley4Yang Wang5 School of Psychology, , Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China School of Psychology, , Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China School of Psychology, , Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China Department of Psychology, , Boston MA, USA Department of Psychology, , Boston MA, USA School of Psychology, , Central China Normal University, Wuhan, ChinaPrevious research on non-facial features demonstrated that masculinity and femininity correlated highly with perceived competence and warmth, respectively. Several studies focused on dimorphic facial cues and found an association between masculine faces and competence. However, there’s no study exploring the association between facial dimorphism and social judgment both using explicit and implicit experimental paradigms, i.e. Triad Classification Task, Implicit Associate Task. This study examined the association of masculinity/femininity and competence/warmth via explicit and implicit measures in three experiments. The results showed that participants saw feminine/masculine faces as more consistent with warmth/competence for both male and female faces. Besides, it was found that the above associations were more obvious in female participants. The current studies extended research of effects of dimorphic facial cue in social judgment and provided direct evidence linking facial masculinity with perceived competence, and facial femininity with perceived warmth.https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704920980642 |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Fangfang Wen Bin Zuo Shuhan Ma Yian Xu John D. Coley Yang Wang |
spellingShingle |
Fangfang Wen Bin Zuo Shuhan Ma Yian Xu John D. Coley Yang Wang Do We See Masculine Faces as Competent and Feminine Faces as Warm? Effects of Sexual Dimorphism on Facial Perception Evolutionary Psychology |
author_facet |
Fangfang Wen Bin Zuo Shuhan Ma Yian Xu John D. Coley Yang Wang |
author_sort |
Fangfang Wen |
title |
Do We See Masculine Faces as Competent and Feminine Faces as Warm? Effects of Sexual Dimorphism on Facial Perception |
title_short |
Do We See Masculine Faces as Competent and Feminine Faces as Warm? Effects of Sexual Dimorphism on Facial Perception |
title_full |
Do We See Masculine Faces as Competent and Feminine Faces as Warm? Effects of Sexual Dimorphism on Facial Perception |
title_fullStr |
Do We See Masculine Faces as Competent and Feminine Faces as Warm? Effects of Sexual Dimorphism on Facial Perception |
title_full_unstemmed |
Do We See Masculine Faces as Competent and Feminine Faces as Warm? Effects of Sexual Dimorphism on Facial Perception |
title_sort |
do we see masculine faces as competent and feminine faces as warm? effects of sexual dimorphism on facial perception |
publisher |
SAGE Publishing |
series |
Evolutionary Psychology |
issn |
1474-7049 |
publishDate |
2020-11-01 |
description |
Previous research on non-facial features demonstrated that masculinity and femininity correlated highly with perceived competence and warmth, respectively. Several studies focused on dimorphic facial cues and found an association between masculine faces and competence. However, there’s no study exploring the association between facial dimorphism and social judgment both using explicit and implicit experimental paradigms, i.e. Triad Classification Task, Implicit Associate Task. This study examined the association of masculinity/femininity and competence/warmth via explicit and implicit measures in three experiments. The results showed that participants saw feminine/masculine faces as more consistent with warmth/competence for both male and female faces. Besides, it was found that the above associations were more obvious in female participants. The current studies extended research of effects of dimorphic facial cue in social judgment and provided direct evidence linking facial masculinity with perceived competence, and facial femininity with perceived warmth. |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704920980642 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT fangfangwen doweseemasculinefacesascompetentandfemininefacesaswarmeffectsofsexualdimorphismonfacialperception AT binzuo doweseemasculinefacesascompetentandfemininefacesaswarmeffectsofsexualdimorphismonfacialperception AT shuhanma doweseemasculinefacesascompetentandfemininefacesaswarmeffectsofsexualdimorphismonfacialperception AT yianxu doweseemasculinefacesascompetentandfemininefacesaswarmeffectsofsexualdimorphismonfacialperception AT johndcoley doweseemasculinefacesascompetentandfemininefacesaswarmeffectsofsexualdimorphismonfacialperception AT yangwang doweseemasculinefacesascompetentandfemininefacesaswarmeffectsofsexualdimorphismonfacialperception |
_version_ |
1724371391406407680 |