REFERENCES Harvard University Emily Cogsdill & Mahzarin Banaji New discoveries in the development of face-trait inferences: Early attribution and behaviors based on facial appearance ABSTRACT When matching behaviors to faces, adults and children ages 3-10 attributed trustworthy and competent behaviors to faces designed to convey those traits, and did so even to subtly manipulated faces. Moreover, children offered more “gifts” to faces that were "nicer”- looking. Faces thus influence both attributions and behaviors early in development. CONTACT For more information about this research, please contact: Emily Cogsdill (716) Todorov, A., Pakrashi, M., & Oosterhof, N. (2009). Evaluating faces on trustworthiness after minimal time exposure. Social Cognition, 27(6), doi: /soco Rule, N. O., Ambady, N., Adams, R. B., Ozono, H., Nakashima, S., Yoshikawa, S., & Watabe, M. (2010). Polling the face: Prediction and consensus across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(1), doi: /a Blair, I. V., Judd, C. M., & Chapleau, K. M. (2004). The influence of Afrocentric facial features in criminal sentencing. Psychological Science, 15, 674–679. doi: /j x. 4. Rule, N. O., & Ambady, N. (2008). The face of success: Inferences from chief executive officers' appearance predict company profits. Psychological Science, 19, doi: /j x. 5. Todorov, A., Mandisodza, A. N., Goren, A., & Hall, C. C. (2005). Inferences of competence from faces predict election outcomes. Science, 308(5728), doi: /science Cogsdill, E., Todorov, A., Spelke, E., & Banaji, M. (in press). Inferring character from faces: A developmental study. Psychological Science. INTRODUCTION Humans possess a robust tendency to attribute traits to faces. These judgments form extremely rapidly 1, show broad and cross- cultural consensus 2, and are related to important social consequences such as criminal sentencing 3, financial success 4, and even election outcomes 5. Face-trait inference is a central feature of human social cognition that takes root early in development, and can be observed in children as young as three years of age 6. We extended this finding by testing three different variations. Experiment 1a: Do children attribute behaviors to faces? While previous work has shown children attribute traits to faces, here we investigated whether they attribute behaviors as well. Experiment 1b: Can children attribute traits to more subtle faces? Faces in this experiment were either “Extremely” or “Moderately” different from one another. If children attribute traits to the more subtly manipulated faces, this would further support the robustness of early face-trait inference. Experiment 2: Do children prefer nice-looking faces? Do children’s trait attributions actually influence their behavior? Children of all ages decided which faces to give tokens depicting “gifts,” such as cookies or candy. DISCUSSION In Experiment 1a, children attributed both traits and relevant behaviors to faces. Behavioral attributions were most robust for trustworthiness and competence. In Experiment 1b, consensus decreased but remained consistent in the Moderate face condition, and similar developmental trajectories were observed in both conditions. In Experiment 3, children of all ages robustly chose to give “gifts” to faces appearing more trustworthy or submissive, and this tendency remained stable from age Conclusions Children attribute not only traits, but also trait-relevant behaviors based on facial features. Trait attributions also remain robust even when faces are less exaggerated in appearance. Children are sensitive to minor differences in faces and their consistency is graded with the extremity of the faces in trial pairs. Finally, children use of their trait attributions to decide who they prefer to give gifts to. This pattern might extend to a variety of other prosocial behaviors as well. Future Directions In future work, we hope to investigate early sensitivity of face- trait inferences by using even more subtly different faces of both humans and non-human primates. We also plan to study children’s behavioral responses to facial competence judgments by using a social learning paradigm in which children decide whether competent- or incompetent- looking faces know the correct labels for novel objects. EXPERIMENT 1a – Behavior Attributions EXPERIMENT 1b – Subtle Faces EXPERIMENT 2 – Giving Gifts to Faces Method: N=99 children, 51 adults Judged pairs of faces high/low in trust, dominance, & competence Nice/Mean condition: “Which of these people is very nice/mean?” Behavior condition (examples): Trustworthiness: “…shares food with other people?” Dominance: “…can lift very heavy things?” Competence: “…knows how to sing a lot of songs?” Method: Sample and methods same as Expt. 1a Faces were either Extremely or Moderately different All trials: “Which of these people is very nice/mean?” “Extreme”“Moderate” Results: Children robustly attributed behaviors to faces in addition to traits, particularly for trust and competence Nice/mean > Behavior for dominance and competence Dominance behaviors were attributed relatively weakly. Physical dominance (lifting things) > social dominance (deciding what game to play). Adults were similar for trust and dominance. However, they were significantly less consistent with competence (both conditions). Results: Adults showed no differences in responding to the moderate faces. Children in each age group showed similar decreases in consensus when viewing moderate faces. The effect of age on “nice/mean” consensus was of similar magnitude in both conditions: Extreme: r = 0.30 Moderate: r = 0.34 Method: Faces were high/low in Trust and Dominance Children “gave gifts” to faces using small laminated items with Velcro “This is Michael, and this is William. If you had only one cookie to give, who would you give it to? Michael, or William?” Results: Children gave gifts to trustworthy or submissive (ie., “nicer”-looking) faces in 65% of trials No significant difference between younger and older children Consensus is significantly greater than chance (50%) but also less than that of trait judgments (around 90%). % gave gifts to trustworthy/submissive face n = 24, 26n = 38, 40n = 37, 42n = 51, 50