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A person's trustworthiness is judged by their face
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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In business matters, people rely more on those whose appearance inspires confidence, regardless of whether that person can actually be trusted.
Success in business ventures depends to a large extent on the ability to inspire trust in others.
It is difficult for a person to give up the tendency to judge the character and moral qualities of others by their appearance. As experiments by psychologists from the University of Warwick (UK) have shown, even in important financial matters we evaluate the reliability of a partner by their face.
The scientists used several dozen photographs of different people, each of whom was present in two forms: one physiognomy inspired confidence, the other - hardly. Both facial expressions were exaggerated to the extreme with the help of a photo editor, but, according to the authors of the work, there was no unnatural caricature in the photographs used.
Then the psychologists invited several volunteers to play a financial game. Each was given a certain amount of money, from which they could give some part to a trusted person - from those who were captured in the photographs. According to the rules of the game, the amount given was tripled, but the trusted person decided what part of the profit to give back. That is, the subjects had to judge from the photo which of the trusted persons would be the most honest and return more money.
As the researchers write in the web journal PLoS ONE, thirteen out of fifteen people gave the most money to those whose faces inspired the most trust. After that, the psychologists presented the subjects with information about each of the candidates in the photo, and it turned out that some were extremely unreliable partners, while others, on the contrary, were extremely faithful. But, as it turned out, this data is nothing compared to the visual impression of appearance. If two equally trustworthy faces passed in front of a person, only one person, according to the accompanying information, was a crook, and the second was an honest businessman, then the honest one had only a 6 percent advantage over the dishonest one.
In other words, the decision whether to trust a person or not is made almost entirely based on the appearance of the prospective partner. So don't laugh at those who were fooled by a swindler who wormed his way into your confidence: an open face, a firm handshake and a direct look can fool you too, even if they shout in both ears that you can't trust them. On the other hand, we can advise those who are going to an important interview to practice their acting skills: the ability to portray an honest guy will be more useful than experience, education and recommendations.
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