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Looking like a leader : facial shape predicts perceived height and leadership ability

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e80957.pdf (3.977Mb)
Date
04/12/2013
Author
Re, Daniel Edward
Hunter, David William
Coetzee, Vinet
Tiddeman, Bernard P.
Xiao, Dengke
DeBruine, Lisa M.
Jones, Benedict C.
Perrett, David Ian
Keywords
Leadership
Face shape
Height perception
Social judgement
Facial cues
BF Psychology
Metadata
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Abstract
Judgments of leadership ability from face images predict the outcomes of actual political elections and are correlated with leadership success in the corporate world. The specific facial cues that people use to judge leadership remain unclear, however. Physical height is also associated with political and organizational success, raising the possibility that facial cues of height contribute to leadership perceptions. Consequently, we assessed whether cues to height exist in the face and, if so, whether they are associated with perception of leadership ability. We found that facial cues to perceived height had a strong relationship with perceived leadership ability. Furthermore, when allowed to manually manipulate faces, participants increased facial cues associated with perceived height in order to maximize leadership perception. A morphometric analysis of face shape revealed that structural facial masculinity was not responsible for the relationship between perceived height and perceived leadership ability. Given the prominence of facial appearance in making social judgments, facial cues to perceived height may have a significant influence on leadership selection.
Citation
Re , D E , Hunter , D W , Coetzee , V , Tiddeman , B P , Xiao , D , DeBruine , L M , Jones , B C & Perrett , D I 2013 , ' Looking like a leader : facial shape predicts perceived height and leadership ability ' , PLoS One , vol. 8 , no. 12 , e80957 . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080957
Publication
PLoS One
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080957
ISSN
1932-6203
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2013 Re et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/4284

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