Average looking women are more trustworthy

In an experiment lead by Carmel Sofer of Princeton University & Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands researchers created a typical face by digitally averaging 92 female faces & also created an ‘attractive’ face by averaging the 12 most attractive faces, from a set of faces. They then combined both faces into 1 & created 9 variations that had differing levels of attractiveness & typicality. Eventually they created a continuum of 11 faces that ranged from least to most attractive. The most typical face was positioned in the centre.

Female participants were made to view & rate the different faces & rate it on a 9 point scale (1 being the lowest) in terms of trustworthiness & attractiveness. The result as per ratings revealed that the closer a face was to the most typical face; the more trustworthy it was considered to be.

References: -

1. Carmel Sofer, Ron Dotsch, Daniel H. J. Wigboldus, and Alexander Todorov. What Is Typical Is Good: The Influence of Face Typicality on Perceived Trustworthiness. Psychological Science 2014; 0(2014): 0956797614554955v1-956797614554955.

2. People Trust Typical-Looking Faces Most. December 16, 2014. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/people-trust-typical-looking-faces-most.html (accessed December 24, 2014).