Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T05:33:13.511Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 4 - Facial Aging and its Influence on Facial Stereotypes and Trait Judgments

from Part II - Aging and Aging Stereotypes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2023

By
Robert G. Franklin
Edited by
Ursula Hess ,
Reginald B. Adams, Jr.  and
Robert E. Kleck
Ursula Hess
Affiliation:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Reginald B. Adams, Jr.
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Robert E. Kleck
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
Get access

Summary

Facial appearance plays an important role in how we form first impressions of others throughout the lifespan. Many studies have demonstrated that individuals consistently infer personality traits from faces, even when they do not accurately reflect a person’s personality. Only recently has this research been extended into examining older faces and how aging affects these trait impressions. This chapter discusses the impact of aging on judgments of four traits based on first impressions: facial competence, trustworthiness, health, and aggressiveness. Judgments for each of these traits are affected by aging, both by physical changes to facial structure and by stereotypes associated with aging. This chapter also discusses how aging affects the accuracy of first impressions from faces, most notably increasing the accuracy of health judgments but having little effect on the accuracy for other traits.

Keywords

Trait InferencesFace PerceptionAgingTrustworthinessCompetenceAttractivenessBabyfacedness
Type
Chapter
Information
Emotion Communication by the Aging Face and Body
A Multidisciplinary View
 , pp. 85 - 105
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. B., Albohn, D. N., & Kveraga, K. (2017). Social vision: Applying a social-functional approach to face and expression perception. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26, 243–248.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Adams, R. B. Jr., Franklin, R. G. Jr., Nelson, A. J., & Stevenson, M. T. (2011). Compound social cues in face processing. In Adams, R. B. Jr., Ambady, N., Nakayama, K., & Shimojo, S. (eds.), The science of social vision (pp. 90–107). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Adams, R. B. Jr., Garrido, C. O., Albohn, D. N., Hess, U., & Kleck, R. E. (2016). What facial appearance reveals over time: When perceived expressions in neutral faces reveal stable emotion dispositions. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 986.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Albohn, D. N., & Adams, R. B. (2021a). Emotion residue in neutral faces: implications for impression formation. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 12(4), 479–486.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albohn, D. N. & Adams, R. B. (2021b). The expressive triad: Structure, color, and texture similarity of emotion expressions predict impressions of neutral faces. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 612913.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Albohn, D. N., & Adams, R. B. Jr. (2020). Everyday beliefs about emotion perceptually derived from neutral facial appearance. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 264.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Andreoletti, C., Leszczynski, J. P., & Disch, W. B. (2015) Gender, race, and age: The content of compound stereotypes across the life span. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 81(1–2), 27–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bailey, P. E., Slessor, G., Rieger, M., et al. (2015). Trust and trustworthiness in young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 30, 977–986.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barber, S. J., Lee, H., Becerra, J., & Tate, C. C. (2019). Emotional expressions affect perceptions of younger and older adults’ everyday competence. Psychology and Aging, 34(7), 991–1004.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blair, I. V., Judd, C. M., Sadler, M. S., & Jenkins, C. (2002). The role of Afrocentric features in person perception: Judging by features and categories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 5–25.Google ScholarPubMed
Boshyan, J., Zebrowitz, L. A., Franklin, R. G. Jr., McCormick, C. M., & Carré, J. M. (2014). Age similarities in recognizing threat from faces and diagnostic cues. Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 69, 710–718.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carré, J. M., & McCormick, C. M. (2008). In your face: Facial metrics predict aggressive behaviour in the laboratory and in varsity and professional hockey players. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275(1651), 2651–2656.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cecil, V., Pendry, L. F., Salvatore, J., Mycroft, H., & Kurz, T. (2022). Gendered ageism and gray hair: Must older women choose between feeling authentic and looking competent? Journal of Women & Aging, 34, 210–225.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cogsdill, E. J., Todorov, A. T., Spelke, E. S., & Banaji, M. R. (2014). Inferring character from faces: A developmental study. Psychological Science, 25(5), 1132–1139.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cotofana, S., Fratila, A. A., Schenck, T. L., et al. (2016). The anatomy of the aging face: A review. Facial Plastic Surgery, 32(3), 253–260.Google ScholarPubMed
Cuddy, A. J., & Fiske, S. T. (2002). Doddering, but dear: Process, content, and function in stereotyping of elderly people. In Nelson, T. D. (ed.) Ageism (pp. 3–26). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dion, K. K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 285–290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eagly, A. H., Ashmore, R. D., Makhijani, M. G., & Longo, L. C. (1991). What is beautiful is good, but … : A meta-analytic review of research on the physical attractiveness stereotype. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 109–128. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.110.1.109CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fölster, M., Hess, U., & Werheid, K. (2014). Facial age affects emotional expression decoding. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Franklin, R. G. Jr., & Adams, R. B. Jr. (2010). The two halves of beauty: Laterality and the duality of facial attractiveness. Brain and Cognition, 72, 300–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, R. G. Jr., Adams, R. B. Jr., Steiner, T. G., & Zebrowitz, L. A. (2019) Reading the lines of the face: Angularity and roundness in perceiving facial anger and joy. Emotion, 19, 209–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000423CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Franklin, R. G. Jr., & Zebrowitz, L. A. (2013). Older adults’ trait impressions of faces are sensitive to subtle resemblance to emotions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 37(3), 139–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Franklin, R. G. Jr., & Zebrowitz, L. A. (2016). The influence of political candidates’ facial appearance on older and younger adults’ voting choices and actual electoral success. Cogent OA Psychology. http://10.1080/23311908.2016.1151602CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freudenberg, M., Adams, R. B. Jr., Kleck, R. E., & Hess, U. (2015). Through a glass darkly: Facial wrinkles affect our processing of emotion in the elderly. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freudenberg, M., Albohn, D. N., Kleck, R. E., Adams, R. B. Jr., & Hess, U. (2020). Emotional stereotypes on trial: Implicit emotion associations for young and old adults. Emotion, 20, 1244–1254.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friedman, O. (2005). Changes associated with the aging face. Facial Plastic Surgery Clinics, 13, 371–380.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Galton, F. (1883). Inquiries into human faculty and its development. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giacomin, M., & Rule, N. O. (2020). How static facial cues relate to real-world leaders’ success: a review and meta-analysis. European Review of Social Psychology, 31(1), 120–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.Google Scholar
Gregoratos, G. (2001). Clinical manifestations of acute myocardial infarction in older patients. The American Journal of Geriatric Cardiology, 10(6), 345–347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Griffin, A. M., & Langlois, J. H. (2006). Stereotype directionality and attractiveness stereotyping: Is beauty good or is ugly bad?. Social Cognition, 24(2), 187–206.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
He, D., Workman, C. I., Kenett, Y. N., He, X., & Chatterjee, A. (2021). The effect of aging on facial attractiveness: An empirical and computational investigation. Acta Psychologica, 219, 103385.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hess, U., Adams, R. B., & Kleck, R. E. (2008). The devil is in the details: The meanings of faces and how they influence the meanings of facial expressions. In Or, J. (ed.), Affective computing: Focus on emotion expression, synthesis, and recognition (pp. 45–56) (I-techonline/I-Tech). www.intechopen.com/books/affective_computing/the_devil_is_in_the_details_-_the_meanings_of_faces_and_how_they_influence_the_meanings_of_facial. http://10.5772/6187CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, U., Adams, R. B. Jr., Simard, A., Stevenson, M. T., & Kleck, R. E. (2012). Smiling and sad wrinkles: Age-related changes in the face and the perception of emotions and intentions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 1377–1380.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hummert, M. L. (1994). Physiognomic cues to age and the activation of stereotypes of the elderly in interaction. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 39(1), 5–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hummert, M. L. (2011). Age stereotypes and aging. In Handbook of the psychology of aging (pp. 249–262). Amsterdam: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hummert, M. L., Garstka, T. A., & Shaner, J. L. (1997). Stereotyping of older adults: The role of target facial cues and perceiver characteristics. Psychology and Aging, 12(1), 107–114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knight, R. L., Chalabaev, A., McNarry, M. A., Mackintosh, K. A., & Hudson, J. (2022). Do age stereotype‐based interventions affect health‐related outcomes in older adults? A systematic review and future directions. British Journal of Health Psychology, 27, 338–373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kutschera, U. (2018). Darwin’s nose: The revival of physiognomy at Stanford University. Japan Journal of Medicine, 1, 243–246. http://10.31488/jjm.1000124Google Scholar
Langlois, J. H., Kalakanis, L., Rubenstein, A. J., et al. (2000). Maxims or myths of beauty? A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 390–423.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lautenbacher, S., Walz, A. L., & Kunz, M. (2018). Using observational facial descriptors to infer pain in persons with and without dementia. BMC Geriatrics, 18(1), 1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lavater, J. C., & Gessner, G. (1848). Essays on physiognomy: Designed to promote the knowledge and the love of mankind. London: W. Tegg.Google Scholar
Malatesta, C. Z., Fiore, M. J., & Messina, J. J. (1987). Affect, personality, and facial expressive characteristics of older people. Psychology and Aging, 2, 64–69. http://10.1037/0882-7974.2.1.64CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Matheson, D. H. (1997). The painful truth: Interpretation of facial expressions of pain in older adults. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 21, 223–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathews, A., Mackintosh, B., & Fulcher, E. P. (1997). Cognitive biases in anxiety and attention to threat. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 1(9), 340–345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mendelson, B., & Wong, C. H. (2020). Changes in the facial skeleton with aging: Implications and clinical applications in facial rejuvenation. Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 44, 1151–1158.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, P. S. (1955). Old age in the Greek poets. The Classical Weekly, 48(13), 177–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ng, S. Y., Zebrowitz, L. A., & Franklin, R. G. Jr. (2016). Age differences in the differentiation of trait impressions from faces. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 71, 220–229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Olivola, C. Y., Funk, F., & Todorov, A. (2014). Social attributions from faces bias human choices. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18(11), 566–570.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oosterhof, N. N., & Todorov, A. (2008). The functional basis of face evaluation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(32), 11087–11092.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Palumbo, R., Adams, R. B. Jr., Hess, U., Kleck, R. E., & Zebrowitz, L. (2017). Age and gender differences in facial attractiveness, but not emotion resemblance, contribute to age and gender stereotypes. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, T., & Corneille, O. (2008). Locating attractiveness in the face space: Faces are more attractive when closer to their group prototype. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15(3), 615–622.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rule, N. O., & Ambady, N. (2008). The face of success: Inferences from chief executive officers’ appearance predict company profits. Psychological Science, 19, 109–111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Todorov, A., Mandisodza, A. N., Goren, A., & Hall, C. C. (2005). Inferences of competence from faces predict election outcomes. Science, 308, 1623–1626.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ward, R., Jones, R., Hughes, J., Humberstone, N., & Pearson, R. (2008). Intersections of ageing and sexuality: Accounts from older people. In Ward, R. & Bytheway, B. (eds.), Researching age and multiple discrimination (pp. 45–72). London: Centre for Policy on Ageing. http://oro.open.ac.uk/id/eprint/27390Google Scholar
Watier, N. (2018). The saliency of angular shapes in threatening and nonthreatening faces. Perception, 47(3), 306–329.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Welling, L. L. M., Conway, C. A., Debruine, L. M., & Jones, B. C. (2007). Perceived vulnerability to disease is positively related to the strength of preferences for apparent health in faces. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 131–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First impressions: Making up your mind after a 100-ms exposure to a face. Psychological Science, 17, 592–598.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, J. P., & Rule, N. O. (2016). Hypothetical sentencing decisions are associated with actual capital punishment outcomes: The role of facial trustworthiness. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7, 331–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zebrowitz, L. A. (1997). Reading faces: Window to the soul? Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Zebrowitz, L. A. (2017). First impressions from faces. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(3), 237–242.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zebrowitz, L. A., Fellous, J. M., Mignault, A., & Andreoletti, C. (2003). Trait impressions as overgeneralized responses to adaptively significant facial qualities: Evidence from connectionist modeling. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7, 194–215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zebrowitz, L. A., & Franklin, R. G. Jr. (2014). Changes in the attractiveness halo effect and the babyface stereotype in older adulthood. Experimental Aging Research, 40, 375–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zebrowitz, L. A., Franklin, R. G. Jr., Boshyan, J., et al. (2014). Older and younger adults’ accuracy in discerning competence and health in older and younger faces. Psychology and Aging, 29, 454–468.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zebrowitz, L. A., Franklin, R. G. Jr. Hillman, S., & Boc, H. (2013). Comparing older and younger adults’ first impressions from faces. Psychology and Aging, 28, 202–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zebrowitz, L. A., Kikuchi, M., & Fellous, J. M. (2010). Facial resemblance to emotions: group differences, impression effects, and race stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 175–189.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zebrowitz, L. A., & Montepare, J. M. (1992). Impressions of babyfaced males and females across the lifespan. Developmental Psychology, 28, 1143–1152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zebrowitz, L. A., & Montepare, J. (2006). The ecological approach to person perception: Evolutionary roots and contemporary offshoots. In Schaller, M., Simpson, J. A., & Kenrick, D. T. (eds.), Evolution and social psychology (pp. 81–113). Madison, CT: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Zebrowitz, L. A., & Montepare, J. M. (2008). Social psychological face perception: Why appearance matters. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 1497–1517.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zebrowitz, L. A., & Montepare, J. M. (2013). Faces and first impressions. In Bargh, J. and Borgida, G. (eds.), Handbook of personality and social psychology, Vol. 1: Attitudes and social cognition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Zebrowitz, L. A., & Rhodes, G. (2004). Sensitivity to “bad genes” and the anomalous face overgeneralization effect: Cue validity, cue utilization, and accuracy in judging intelligence and health. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 28(3), 167–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zebrowitz, L. A., Voinescu, L., & Collins, M. A. (1996). “Wide-eyed” and” crooked-faced”: Determinants of perceived and real honesty across the life span. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 1258–1269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zebrowitz, L. A., Wang, R., Bronstad, P. M., et al. (2012). First impressions from faces among US and culturally isolated Tsimane’ people in the Bolivian rainforest. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43(1), 119–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×