Someone wanted to know if a higher WHR might be a biomarker for an aggression, which is also related to high testosterone levels. They asked volunteers to guess from photos of white Caucasian faces which one were the fighting type.
Surprisingly, Not only could the judges in the study accurately detect which men are aggressive based on a headshot alone, they could so after seeing the face for only 39 millisecond. These men had highest MHRs. Women with high WHRs are perceived as more aggressive than average).
Male face width is also associated with a propensity to deceive. In a study, men with higher WHRs were three times likelier than their narrow-faced peers to lie to increase their financial gain in hypothetical scenarios. So don’t dismiss your instinct. In a study, people who perceived as dishonest were likelier to mislead their peers than were those whose faces were thought to look honest. In studies involving the prisoner’s dilemma game, participants, going by facial photos alone, could accurately identify people who were likely to deceive, and also remember the faces of prospective cheaters more than cooperators.
Criminal identification isn’t hugely reliable, in part because there are too many false alarms. Rapists, shockingly, women (but not men) thought that the convicted rapists would be less likely to commit a crime than anyone else. Nonthreatening, even attractive, their face didn’t fit the stereotype. There may be a slyly adaptive reason for this disparity. Men who look aggressive or dangerous will have a harder time luring potential victims into situation where a rape can take place. A lesson: While our instincts can protect us from harm in a general sense, we can’t depend on them to protect us from sexual assault.
What exactly are judges picking up on in studies of deceit and dangerous individuals? The most obvious features are those associate with high testosterone- a high facial width-to-height ratio alone with a superhero jawline and brow ridge—because of their association with a strong sense of power.
But nature may also change a face in telltale-albeit subtle-way. Anger increase the face’ WHR (rising the upper lip and lowering the brow), and chronic anger may linger on a face,,,
