Washington:
A quick glance at someone's facial structure can give a sense of how temperamental the person is, a new study suggests.
A person with a broad face, having large width-to-height ratio (WHR), is likely to be more aggressive than the one with a narrow or long face, according to psychologists of Brock University, Canada.
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 males develop a greater WHR than females during puberty.
The psychologists came to their conclusion following a study, in which they asked volunteers to predict the behaviour of a person by looking at his photograph.
The volunteers were showed photographs of men, whose behaviour was previously assessed in the lab, and were asked to rate how aggressive they thought each person was on a scale of one to seven after viewing each picture for either 2000 milliseconds or 39 milliseconds.
The volunteers' estimate correlated highly with the actual behaviour of the individuals, even if they saw the picture for only 39 milliseconds.
The estimates also corresponded with WHR of the faces -- the greater the WHR, the higher the aggressive rating -- suggesting that facial structure could be a substantiating parametre to judge one's potential aggression.
A person with a broad face, having large width-to-height ratio (WHR), is likely to be more aggressive than the one with a narrow or long face, according to psychologists of Brock University, Canada.
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 males develop a greater WHR than females during puberty.
The psychologists came to their conclusion following a study, in which they asked volunteers to predict the behaviour of a person by looking at his photograph.
The volunteers were showed photographs of men, whose behaviour was previously assessed in the lab, and were asked to rate how aggressive they thought each person was on a scale of one to seven after viewing each picture for either 2000 milliseconds or 39 milliseconds.
The volunteers' estimate correlated highly with the actual behaviour of the individuals, even if they saw the picture for only 39 milliseconds.
The estimates also corresponded with WHR of the faces -- the greater the WHR, the higher the aggressive rating -- suggesting that facial structure could be a substantiating parametre to judge one's potential aggression.
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