“I have a very normal face”: having a typical or average face is normally seen as a negative Well now, new research from Princeton University (USA) and Radboud Nijmegen University (Netherlands) suggests The most typical faces are the ones that make us trust people the most. Although having a normal face is not synonymous with attractiveness, it is a determining factor when they trust us . The study has been published in the journal Psychological Science .
The researchers conducted an experiment creating a “typical face” in digital format with an average of 92 female faces ; in the same way, they created an “attractive face” by choosing the 12 most beautiful faces from among another set of people. By combining both faces into one, they created 9 variations with varying levels of appeal and traditional or popular characteristics. The end result was a range of 11 faces, from the most attractive to the least attractive, with the most typical face occupying the midpoint between both extremes.
Right after, they showed the 11 faces to a series of women who had to rate on a 9-point scale based on how trustworthy or attractive each face appeared to them. They had to take this exam three times. The results showed that the closer the face was to the more typical face, the more trustworthy that face was considered .
Thus, “although the typical face did not matter for the attractiveness assessment, it did matter for the reliability judgments. This effect may have been overlooked , because judgments of reliability and attractiveness are generally correlated in research, ”explains Carmel Sofer, study leader.
“Our results shed new light on how the traditional or typical face influences social perception. They highlight the social significance of the typical face because the reliability judgments approximate the general evaluation of the faces, ”Sofer clarifies.
