You’ve finally got an interview for your dream job. Dozens of applications, dozens of rejection letters – but now you’ve got a shot at the job you really wanted. In you go. Maybe you shake hands with the person who will decide your future, pour a glass of water to steady your nerves.

But what you don’t know is that none of this matters. The second your interviewer set eyes on you, they decided you looked so incompetent and untrustworthy that you would never get this job. Because unfortunately, they are one of a subset of people who new research shows have a disposition to judge extreme personality traits from just a quick view of a person’s face.

Look at the two faces below. Would you hire these people? Who looks more intelligent? Would you trust either person to watch your laptop in a cafe while you pop out to take a call?

These images were created by psychologist Lisa DeBruine and colleagues. In fact they are composite images, with each one having been created by combining four different faces.

Even though these faces aren’t real, you may still have made a snap verdict about each composite person’s competence based on their facial expression and structure. We do this all the time. Even though the people in the images don’t exist, we still have projected traits onto them. Making quick judgments about how much we should trust someone, how dominant they are likely to be, or how intelligent they are can be useful estimates of personality.

But this can also, unfortunately, lead to stereotyping – for example, thinking that people with a particular physical characteristic must all be untrustworthy.

Harsh judgments

Recent work from researchers in Japan suggests something more worrying; that some of us have a disposition to draw drastic conclusions about the traits and personalities of others based solely on facial appearance.

In a series of online studies with more than 300 participants, Atsunobu Suzuki and colleagues found what they call “face-based trait inferences” (FBTIs). Basically, subjects made a series of personality judgments having taken a brief look at someone’s face.

Read full story https://theconversation.com/why-you-could-have-face-ism-an-extreme-tendency-to-judge-people-based-on-their-facial-features-195298.