What can we say of a person looking at his face?

A lot 'of things, apparently.
The psychological experiments of the new millennium have allowed us to evaluate his sexual orientation, sexual activity, the inclination to criminal acts of a person - Even allowed us to figure out if a person is a Mormon or not, everything starting from their faces.
A new study suggests the presence of another section to be added to the list of things recognizable: the tendency of a man to express racist attitudes.
There is an obvious irony in a study that says that we can tell if a person is a bigot or less from the shape of his face.
But the logic behind this study, conducted by researchers at the University of Delaware and published in the journal Psychological Science is complex and unexpected, but convincing.
The surprise is that it's all because of testosterone.
Recent studies indicate that men with high testosterone levels have certain facial characteristics that differentiate them from men with low testosterone levels.
In particular, these people have what researchers call a greater ratio of width-to-height facial (facial Width-to-Height Ratio, fWHR) comparing the distance between the cheeks to the distance between the upper lip and the eyelashes.
Men with a higher ratio in this regard have faces that look more wide horizontal and narrow vertical (see below).
Several studies suggest that these people tend to engage in conduct which usually associate with testosterone - included (sorry guys) greater inclination to cheat, to cheat others, and make fouls during a game of hockey and to behave aggressively.
The difference in fWHR that are commonly seen among men and women seems to increase during puberty, when most of the male adolescents explode testosterone.
Their narrow, oval skull becomes proportionally wider, more like a rectangle.
Not all the men's faces change in the same way that not all men have the same level of testosterone.
And there's another thing you can understand thanks to testosterone: men with higher levels want to dominate.
Moreover, we tend to easily scansarci from the road of these people because for one thing having a higher ratio fWHR perceive them as more physically dominant.
As it is written in the study:
... it might be more accurate to say that testosterone promotes research and maintaining a state of social domination.
Therefore, as long as a majority fWHR ratio is associated with an increased presence of testosterone, fWHR relationship could be a physical manifestation of the intentions of dominance in men and could best be described as an inclination towards interpersonal social dominance, and similar attitudes.
Among the various ways in which men exercise dominant behavior there is also the inclination to go against the rules of society.
( "Some neurological findings," says the study, "have shown that high levels of testosterone are associated with reduced activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, an area used for impulse control and inhibition.)
On the other hand, we take for granted that these people are inclined to go against these rules.
What we know them or not, we know what people will tend to break the rules because knowing the shape of their faces we can guess who have higher testosterone levels.
Of course, in the outside world to parties of isolationist parties, for society to express openly racist opinions is incorrect.
Thus, the researchers Delaware, led by professor of psychology Eric Hehman (now at Dartmouth), have questioned whether men with a higher rate of fWHR may feel more comfortable expressing opinions explicitly racist, since their high level of testosterone would make them feel less socially inhibited.
After collecting the data, and the tests carried out on 70 white males, the researchers found that, compared to others, it works just as well.
The researchers sought to understand although observers, looking at the photographs of those same 70 men, they would be more likely to assume that men with wider faces were the most racist.
And even in this case the details have been confirmed.
What's more, their evaluations were in line with what the 70 men had revealed itself: it was much more likely that the same men identified by observers as racist had explicitly expressed racist opinions.
In our exchange of emails, Hehman also explained how he and his colleagues have carried out tests on 70 men who took part in the study on so-called expressions of racial prejudice "implicit."
The scientist has described as "the automatic association of other ethnic groups with 'negatives'" - a kind of unconscious response "that people are less able to control."
As for these implicit expressions of prejudice, this had no correlation with the shape of the face of a person.
In that sense, we are bad judges.
The other conclusion to be drawn is that we should not have to be loads of testosterone to be racist.
The implicit racism, stressed Hehman, is just another kind of racism with its own subtle consequences.
"A person could simply prevented implicitly ... pay less attention to Obama when he exhibited the political arguments or give less credence to what he says Obama (without even being conscious of his behavior) and, ultimately, be less inclined to vote for Obama, "the researcher explained.
In this case, he continued, "without performing any act explicitly racist or be aware of these effects."
As pointed out by Hehman, it is really a study on the desire to express racist opinions, not opinions on the same.
Yet, this research contains a kind of determinism that, similar to studies correlating facial structure crime or Mormonism, suggests a certain inevitability - an idea to which many anti-racists could resist.
Hehman does not shy away from its implications: "Ultimately, I believe that the practical application of the study is to help people understand when and in what situations trust their insights into the personalities of others and when, however, doubt their own intuition, because there are more likely to misbehave in other situations, "he explained.
But that same determinism is inevitable only if we believe that nature is the only factor to consider.
A person can have a face that in our society, for any (and perhaps retrograde) evolutionary or cultural reason, communicates dishonesty.
Treat a person as a liar and that same person might become one, reinforcing the stereotype in a vicious circle that has much in common with the inevitability.
Probably, the majority of scientists should not assume that nature and culture both play a role in influencing these phenomena, distinguishing the results of these searches from those risky by the pseudo-science of the past, like phrenology.
"I think being aware of the old debate makes contemporary scientists reluctant to come to conclusions too semplicistice," said Hehman.
"So, my optimistic side prefers to think that our industry has learned from past mistakes."
Source: "Facial Structure Is Indicative of Explicit Support for prejudicial Beliefs," Eric Hehman, Jordan B. Leitner, Matthew P. Deegan, and Samuel L. Gaertner, Psychological Science, XX (X) 1-8, (2013)

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