New findings in the journal Psychological Science suggest that a quick glance at a man's facial structure may be enough for us to predict their tendency towards aggression. The new research looked specifically at facial width-to-height ratio (WHR). WHR is determined by measuring the distance between the right and left cheeks and the distance from the upper lip to the mid-brow. During childhood, boys and girls have similar facial structures, but during puberty, males develop a greater WHR than females.
Previous research has suggested that males with a larger WHR act more aggressively than those with a smaller WHR. The researchers say other studies have shown that hockey players with greater WHR earn more penalty minutes per game than players with lower WHR.
In the new study, the researchers conducted an experiment to see if it is possible to predict another person's tendency for aggressive behavior simply by looking at their photograph. Volunteers viewed photographs of faces of men for whom aggressive behavior was previously assessed in the lab. The volunteers rated how aggressive they thought each person was on a scale of one to seven after viewing each face for two seconds or less.
The study reports that the results were very revealing. The volunteers' estimates of aggression correlated highly with the actual aggressive behavior of the faces viewed, even if they saw the picture for only 39 milliseconds. Even more interestingly, the volunteers' estimates were also highly correlated with WHR of the faces - the greater the WHR, the higher the aggressive rating, suggesting that we may use this aspect of facial structure to judge potential aggression in others.
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Source: Association for Psychological Science
