The reader in face-reading: viewers’ social dominance orientation impacts the first impressions of anomalous faces
Humans rely on “face-reading” to infer others’ psychological traits, inadvertently reinforcing stereotypes such as “beauty is good” or “anomaly is bad.” We investigated how Social Dominance Orientation (SDO; an individual difference variable related to a cluster of ideological beliefs and attitudes according to which some groups are inherently superior to others) influences judgments of faces with anomalies (scars and palsies). The analytic sample comprised 1,305 U.S. adults recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mage = 36.51, SD = 10.23, range = 20–84 years; 65% male, 35% female, and < 1% other). Participants rated traits (e.g., trustworthiness, intelligence) of facial photographs. Afterward, they completed an SDO measure. Principal component analysis yielded two primary components: warmth and competence. We also measured dehumanization of anomalous faces. Using linear mixed-effects models, as predicted, higher SDO was related to lower warmth and greater dehumanization. However, contrary to expectations, higher SDO was associated with higher competence ratings. This suggests that individuals who endorse social hierarchies may perceive people with facial anomalies as less warm and more dehumanized, yet still cognitively capable. These findings underscore the importance of individual differences, particularly those related to hierarchy beliefs, in shaping how people perceive and judge others based on facial appearance.