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The Influence of Hair and Faces on Social Judgments of Power and Warmth

  • University of Massachusetts Boston
    ,
  • University of Delaware
    ,
  • Psychology
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

We explored how faces and hair influence social judgments of power and warmth by altering 40 photos to display only hair (“Hair-only”), only face (“Face-only”), or both (“Whole Picture”). Across conditions, participants’ (N = 195) Face-only judgments strongly correlated with Whole Picture judgments, even when controlling for hair judgments. Although Hair-only judgments did not significantly predict warmth, they were a strong predictor of Whole Picture judgments of power (r = .65, p <  .001), even when controlling for Face-Only judgments (β = .56, p <  .001). The impact of hair judgments on overall power judgments was greater for male than female targets and judges, suggesting that hair plays a prominent role in males’ perceptions of power and how males are judged with respect to power. In contrast, face rating predominately explained warmth judgments (R2 = 0.84, p <  .001), and adding hair ratings did not contribute to additional variance (ΔR2 <  0.01, p = .68). These findings align with theories of impression formation, which propose that warmth judgments rely on involuntary facial cues, while power judgments incorporate controllable appearance features such as hair.

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