Explaining the persistent influence of facial cues in social decision-making

Bastian Jaeger, Anthony Evans, M. Stel, Ilja van Beest

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Impressions of trustworthiness based on facial cues influence many consequential decisions, in spite of their (generally) poor accuracy. Here, we test whether reliance on facial cues can be better explained by (a) the belief that facial cues are more valid than other cues or by (b) the quick and primary processing of faces, which makes relying on facial cues relatively effortless. Six studies (N = 2,732 with 73,182 trust decisions) test the two accounts by comparing the effects of facial cues and economic payoffs on trust decisions. People believe that facial cues are less valid than economic payoffs (Study 1), but relying on facial cues takes less time than relying on economic payoffs (Study 2). Critically, introducing facial cues causes people to discount payoff information, but introducing payoff information does not reduce the effect of facial cues (Studies 3a-c). Finally, when making intuitive (vs. reflective) trust decisions, people rely less on payoff information, but they do not rely less on facial cues (Study 4). Together, these findings suggest that persistent reliance on facial trustworthiness is better explained by the intuitive accessibility of facial cues, rather than beliefs that facial cues are particularly valid.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1008-1021
JournalJournal of Experimental Psychology: General
Volume148
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Funding

In the article “The Importance of Awareness for Understanding Language” by Hugh Rabagliati, Alexander Robertson, and David Carmel (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2018, Vol. 147, No. 2, pp. 190 –208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000348), funding details for David Carmel were not included in the author note. The second sentence of the author note should appear as follows: David Carmel was supported by the European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant XSPECT—DLV-692739, awarded to Andy Clark).

FundersFunder number
European Research CouncilDLV-692739

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