Context-specificity in facial cues of leadership

[摘要] Facial cues can have context-contingent effects on leadership judgments, with dominant-looking individuals judged as better leaders in wartime than peacetime contexts and trustworthy-looking individuals judged as better leaders in peacetime than wartime contexts. To further explore this issue participants rated faces for dominance, trustworthiness, attractiveness, effectiveness as leader of a country during wartime or peacetime, and effectiveness as leader of a company manufacturing cars or clothing. Principal component analysis of potential leaders’ characteristics that predicted leadership judgments in prior research produced three components, reflecting general positive regard, dominance, and height, respectively. Perceived dominance and actual height positively predicted leadership judgments in a wartime context but not in a peacetime context. Positive regard positively predicted leadership judgments in a peacetime context, but not in a wartime context. Similar patterns of results were observed for leadership judgments in carmanufacturing and clothing-manufacturing contexts. Together, these results present further evidence for context-contingent effects of facial cues on hypothetical leadership judgments.

[发布机构] University:University of Glasgow;Department:School of Psychology

[关键词] Leadership, face perception.