IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intell/v64y2017icp1-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the accuracy of perceptions of intelligence based on heritable facial features

Author

Listed:
  • Lee, Anthony J.
  • Hibbs, Courtney
  • Wright, Margaret J.
  • Martin, Nicholas G.
  • Keller, Matthew C.
  • Zietsch, Brendan P.

Abstract

Perceptions of intelligence based on facial features can have a profound impact on many social situations, but findings have been mixed as to whether these judgements are accurate. Even if such perceptions were accurate, the underlying mechanism is unclear. Several possibilities have been proposed, including evolutionary explanations where certain morphological facial features are associated with fitness-related traits (including cognitive development), or that intelligence judgements are over-generalisation of cues of transitory states that can influence cognition (e.g., tiredness). Here, we attempt to identify the morphological signals that individuals use to make intelligence judgements from facial photographs. In a genetically informative sample of 1660 twins and their siblings, we measured IQ and also perceptions of intelligence based on facial photographs. We found that intelligence judgements were associated with both stable morphological facial traits (face height, interpupillary distance, and nose size) and more transitory facial cues (eyelid openness, and mouth curvature). There was a significant association between perceived intelligence and measured IQ, but of the specific facial attributes only interpupillary distance (i.e., wide-set eyes) significantly mediated this relationship. We also found evidence that perceived intelligence and measured IQ share a familial component, though we could not distinguish between genetic and shared environmental sources.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Anthony J. & Hibbs, Courtney & Wright, Margaret J. & Martin, Nicholas G. & Keller, Matthew C. & Zietsch, Brendan P., 2017. "Assessing the accuracy of perceptions of intelligence based on heritable facial features," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-8.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:64:y:2017:i:c:p:1-8
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2017.06.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289617300843
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intell.2017.06.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:ucn:wpaper:10197/1112 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Kevin Denny, 2008. "Beauty and intelligence may - or may not - be related," Open Access publications 10197/1112, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    3. Steven Boker & Michael Neale & Hermine Maes & Michael Wilde & Michael Spiegel & Timothy Brick & Jeffrey Spies & Ryne Estabrook & Sarah Kenny & Timothy Bates & Paras Mehta & John Fox, 2011. "OpenMx: An Open Source Extended Structural Equation Modeling Framework," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 76(2), pages 306-317, April.
    4. Tingley, Dustin & Yamamoto, Teppei & Hirose, Kentaro & Keele, Luke & Imai, Kosuke, 2014. "mediation: R Package for Causal Mediation Analysis," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 59(i05).
    5. Nick Patterson & Alkes L Price & David Reich, 2006. "Population Structure and Eigenanalysis," PLOS Genetics, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(12), pages 1-20, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gignac, Gilles E. & Zajenkowski, Marcin, 2019. "People tend to overestimate their romantic partner's intelligence even more than their own," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 41-51.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Johan Oud & Manuel Voelkle, 2014. "Do missing values exist? Incomplete data handling in cross-national longitudinal studies by means of continuous time modeling," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 3271-3288, November.
    2. Gyaneshwer Chaubey & Anurag Kadian & Saroj Bala & Vadlamudi Raghavendra Rao, 2015. "Genetic Affinity of the Bhil, Kol and Gond Mentioned in Epic Ramayana," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-11, June.
    3. Estavoyer, Maxime & François, Olivier, 2022. "Theoretical analysis of principal components in an umbrella model of intraspecific evolution," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 11-21.
    4. Shengkui Zhang & Yongbin Wang & Ying Zhu & Xiaoming Li & Yang Song & Juxiang Yuan, 2020. "Rotating Night Shift Work, Exposure to Light at Night, and Glomerular Filtration Rate: Baseline Results from a Chinese Occupational Cohort," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(23), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Shengkui Zhang & Han Wang & Yongbin Wang & Miao Yu & Juxiang Yuan, 2021. "Association of Rotating Night Shift Work with Body Fat Percentage and Fat Mass Index among Female Steelworkers in North China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-15, June.
    6. Vonneilich, Nico & Lüdecke, Daniel & von dem Knesebeck, Olaf, 2020. "Educational inequalities in self-rated health and social relationships – analyses based on the European Social Survey 2002-2016," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    7. Erin Percival Carter & Stephanie Welcomer, 2021. "Designing and Distinguishing Meaningful Artisan Food Experiences," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-13, July.
    8. Nancy, Jane Y. & Khanna, Nehemiah H. & Arputharaj, Kannan, 2017. "Imputing missing values in unevenly spaced clinical time series data to build an effective temporal classification framework," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 63-79.
    9. Hyosik Jang & Ian M Ehrenreich, 2012. "Genome-Wide Characterization of Genetic Variation in the Unicellular, Green Alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-9, July.
    10. D V M Bishop & Mervyn J Hardiman & Johanna G Barry, 2012. "Auditory Deficit as a Consequence Rather than Endophenotype of Specific Language Impairment: Electrophysiological Evidence," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(5), pages 1-11, May.
    11. Lara Lopez & Fernando L. Vázquez & Ángela J. Torres & Patricia Otero & Vanessa Blanco & Olga Díaz & Mario Páramo, 2020. "Long-Term Effects of a Cognitive Behavioral Conference Call Intervention on Depression in Non-Professional Caregivers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(22), pages 1-24, November.
    12. Xiaofeng Cai & Xuepeng Sun & Chenxi Xu & Honghe Sun & Xiaoli Wang & Chenhui Ge & Zhonghua Zhang & Quanxi Wang & Zhangjun Fei & Chen Jiao & Quanhua Wang, 2021. "Genomic analyses provide insights into spinach domestication and the genetic basis of agronomic traits," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    13. Thompson Katherine L. & Linnen Catherine R. & Kubatko Laura, 2016. "Tree-based quantitative trait mapping in the presence of external covariates," Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology, De Gruyter, vol. 15(6), pages 473-490, December.
    14. Patrizio Zanobini & Chiara Lorini & Saverio Caini & Vieri Lastrucci & Maria Masocco & Valentina Minardi & Valentina Possenti & Giovanna Mereu & Rossella Cecconi & Guglielmo Bonaccorsi, 2022. "Health Literacy, Socioeconomic Status and Vaccination Uptake: A Study on Influenza Vaccination in a Population-Based Sample," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-12, June.
    15. He, Jiaxiu & Wang, Xin (Shane) & Curry, David J., 2017. "Mediation analysis: A new test when all or some variables are categorical," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 780-798.
    16. Michaelis, Timothy L. & Scheaf, David J. & Carr, Jon C. & Pollack, Jeffrey M., 2022. "An agentic perspective of resourcefulness: Self-reliant and joint resourcefulness behaviors within the entrepreneurship process," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(1).
    17. Laura Lecluyse & Mirjam Knockaert & Annelore Huyghe, 2023. "It is not because it is offered that it is used: an investigation into firm-level determinants of use intensity of buffering services in science parks," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 85-104, June.
    18. Jacobo Pardo-Seco & Alberto Gómez-Carballa & Jorge Amigo & Federico Martinón-Torres & Antonio Salas, 2014. "A Genome-Wide Study of Modern-Day Tuscans: Revisiting Herodotus's Theory on the Origin of the Etruscans," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-11, September.
    19. Kan, Kees-Jan & van der Maas, Han L.J. & Levine, Stephen Z., 2019. "Extending psychometric network analysis: Empirical evidence against g in favor of mutualism?," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 52-62.
    20. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:3:p:349-363 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Hyun-Sik Yang & Ling Teng & Daniel Kang & Vilas Menon & Tian Ge & Hilary K. Finucane & Aaron P. Schultz & Michael Properzi & Hans-Ulrich Klein & Lori B. Chibnik & Julie A. Schneider & David A. Bennett, 2023. "Cell-type-specific Alzheimer’s disease polygenic risk scores are associated with distinct disease processes in Alzheimer’s disease," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-13, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:64:y:2017:i:c:p:1-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.