The Effect of Facial Intelligence on Total Impression

The present study investigated the influence of a facial intelligence on impression formation. Ninety-three female undergraduate participated in an experiment. After studying behavioral descriptions and photograph of intellectual or unintellectual target's face, they were asked to form impression and infer the possibility of target's intellectual behavior. Main results were as follows: (1) In both rating the difference of intellectual and unintellectual target's face were large, target who has intellectual face was perceived more intelligent and inferred to do wiser behavior. (2) Controlling for intelligence of face eliminated the differences, but controlling for liking of face didn't. That is, people don't perceive that a person who has attractive face may be seen as more intelligent, but they infer intelligence from face directly and utilize it to impression formation at least when other persons' information is ambiguous or undiagnostic.