Our faces give us away
July 5, 2017 12:22 PM Subscribe
A study by social psychologists shows that people can reliably tell if someone is richer or poorer than average just by looking at a neutral face without any expression. Their conclusion is that emotions mask life-long habits of expression that become etched on a person's face even by their late teens or early adulthood, such as frequent happiness, which is stereotypically associated with being wealthy and satisfied.
"Over time, your face comes to permanently reflect and reveal your experiences," says Rule. "Even when we think we're not expressing something, relics of those emotions are still there."
Link (paywalled) to the original article. COUGHsci-hub.ioCOUGH
Link (paywalled) to the original article. COUGHsci-hub.ioCOUGH
They were able to determine which student belonged to the rich or poor group with about 53 per cent accuracy, a level that exceeds random chance.
Would random chance be 50%? If so, it doesn't seem like a 6% greater than random chance would really be enough to make this very meaningful, but as you can tell by my question, I don't know much about how this all works or what it's supposed to mean.
posted by cell divide at 12:30 PM on July 5, 2017 [16 favorites]
Would random chance be 50%? If so, it doesn't seem like a 6% greater than random chance would really be enough to make this very meaningful, but as you can tell by my question, I don't know much about how this all works or what it's supposed to mean.
posted by cell divide at 12:30 PM on July 5, 2017 [16 favorites]
I've often suspected this, actually. Or really, assumed it - every time I'm in a meeting where the union members are lectured by our betters from the administration, I'm struck by how class is written into our faces, bodies and posture.
posted by Frowner at 12:37 PM on July 5, 2017 [15 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 12:37 PM on July 5, 2017 [15 favorites]
What kind of study doesn't come with a fun online quiz I can take? THIS IS HARDLY SCIENCE.
posted by mittens at 12:38 PM on July 5, 2017 [53 favorites]
posted by mittens at 12:38 PM on July 5, 2017 [53 favorites]
This is my skeptical face.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 12:42 PM on July 5, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 12:42 PM on July 5, 2017 [9 favorites]
I am so fucking tired of policing my face.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:47 PM on July 5, 2017 [28 favorites]
posted by elsietheeel at 12:47 PM on July 5, 2017 [28 favorites]
Agree with cell divide that this study (at least as described in the article, since we don't have access to the original paper) seems like junk science, but I'm a bit surprised by the results anyway as 53% is actually a much lower success rate than I would expect, given the number of cues available from factors such as race, eyewear, jewelry, hairstyle and color, facial hair, skin health, makeup, etc.
posted by phoenixy at 12:50 PM on July 5, 2017 [19 favorites]
posted by phoenixy at 12:50 PM on July 5, 2017 [19 favorites]
Yeah, I think that a lot of the difference could be down to things like haircuts and orthodonture.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:53 PM on July 5, 2017 [21 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:53 PM on July 5, 2017 [21 favorites]
Monocle scars.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:53 PM on July 5, 2017 [105 favorites]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:53 PM on July 5, 2017 [105 favorites]
"Monstrum in Fronte, Monstrum in Anime," rite? This is what bugs me about those inspirational Facebook memes encouraging people to make their faces joyful and bright all the time because otherwise their ugly mugs must be connected to bad/negative ideas on their minds because the face is a mirror of the soul. That's just not how faces work. Faces look the way they do due to interactions of genetics and previous life experience. The face you're wearing by the time you're in your 40s, if you've had a hard life, reflects that history as much as whatever you might be thinking and feeling at the time. How terrible that we socially stigmatize people who've already suffered a lot in life by making faulty inferences about about their inner lives based on those appearances.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:57 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 12:57 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
This is ma pa-pa-poker face.
posted by clavdivs at 12:59 PM on July 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 12:59 PM on July 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm also wondering about the significance of 53%. The article says the results "are consistent, which is what makes it statistically significant". I'm about 30 years removed from my last stats class, i.e., take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I don't recall this being part of establishing statistical significance.
Also, did the pictures include hair and clothing collars, as in the picture with the article? If so, subjects were hardly just "looking at a neutral face without any expression". Hair alone—especially for women—conveys volumes re social class. And I suspect makeup, i.e., whether or not worn, how applied, etc, is a more reliable indicator of social class for women than the expression on unmade-up neutral faces.
posted by she's not there at 1:00 PM on July 5, 2017 [9 favorites]
Also, did the pictures include hair and clothing collars, as in the picture with the article? If so, subjects were hardly just "looking at a neutral face without any expression". Hair alone—especially for women—conveys volumes re social class. And I suspect makeup, i.e., whether or not worn, how applied, etc, is a more reliable indicator of social class for women than the expression on unmade-up neutral faces.
posted by she's not there at 1:00 PM on July 5, 2017 [9 favorites]
The struggle against river blindness is a success! Smile, comrades!
posted by thelonius at 1:07 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 1:07 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Study can be found here.
Study 1 here seems to be pretty flawed: it's a survey of 81 Canadian undergraduates (accurate 61% of the time) and 80 Mechanical Turk participants (accurate 64% of the time) sorting photos taken from dating sites and self-reported incomes therein. They were cropped, greyscaled, and resized, so haircuts were not visible, but teeth might've been. The authors later note that camera angle and emotional expression varied! Also, the immediate and glaring problem with this is that people's current income=/=people's socioeconomic class, so what people are actually spotting is how much money these people are currently making.
Studies 2 and 3 suffer from the same problems, but provide inconclusive results so that's not relevant.
Study 4 is the one that gives the 53% number. The methodology for this was a database of ~150 Canadian Caucasian/East Asian undergraduates (presumably this is the student ID db for this university?) from a db that tracked household income. This was shown to 76 Mechanical Turk workers (American) and 42 Canadian undergraduates in a two-part fashion and their accuracy measures were 52% and 53%.
I don't know enough about statistics to assess Study 5, 6, or 7, because their results rest on assumptions made based on results in the previous studies that seem to me to be questionable.
Regardless of how strong or weak these results turn out to be, none of these studies can even sort of be held to say that childhood SE status is legible on the face; these are all studies about current SE status being legible on the face.
posted by peppercorn at 1:11 PM on July 5, 2017 [30 favorites]
Study 1 here seems to be pretty flawed: it's a survey of 81 Canadian undergraduates (accurate 61% of the time) and 80 Mechanical Turk participants (accurate 64% of the time) sorting photos taken from dating sites and self-reported incomes therein. They were cropped, greyscaled, and resized, so haircuts were not visible, but teeth might've been. The authors later note that camera angle and emotional expression varied! Also, the immediate and glaring problem with this is that people's current income=/=people's socioeconomic class, so what people are actually spotting is how much money these people are currently making.
Studies 2 and 3 suffer from the same problems, but provide inconclusive results so that's not relevant.
Study 4 is the one that gives the 53% number. The methodology for this was a database of ~150 Canadian Caucasian/East Asian undergraduates (presumably this is the student ID db for this university?) from a db that tracked household income. This was shown to 76 Mechanical Turk workers (American) and 42 Canadian undergraduates in a two-part fashion and their accuracy measures were 52% and 53%.
I don't know enough about statistics to assess Study 5, 6, or 7, because their results rest on assumptions made based on results in the previous studies that seem to me to be questionable.
Regardless of how strong or weak these results turn out to be, none of these studies can even sort of be held to say that childhood SE status is legible on the face; these are all studies about current SE status being legible on the face.
posted by peppercorn at 1:11 PM on July 5, 2017 [30 favorites]
I'm also wondering about the significance of 53%. The article says the results "are consistent, which is what makes it statistically significant". I'm about 30 years removed from my last stats class, i.e., take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I don't recall this being part of establishing statistical significance.
I believe what the article is trying to convey is that random chance would be 50 percent, and that their data is different enough statistically that it's unlikely due to random chance. So a small effect that's close to random chance but isn't.
Ideally, we'd review the paper and discuss whether the sample size was large enough and the methodology honest enough to put faith in the results despite the myriad of p-value hacking techniques available to authors.
At a conceptual level at least, this study does put forth an interesting computational psychology experiment: if we use TensorFlow to classify the dataset as rich or poor, what might the eigenface look like, and how does it compare with an eigenface trained on human guesswork?
posted by pwnguin at 1:13 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
I believe what the article is trying to convey is that random chance would be 50 percent, and that their data is different enough statistically that it's unlikely due to random chance. So a small effect that's close to random chance but isn't.
Ideally, we'd review the paper and discuss whether the sample size was large enough and the methodology honest enough to put faith in the results despite the myriad of p-value hacking techniques available to authors.
At a conceptual level at least, this study does put forth an interesting computational psychology experiment: if we use TensorFlow to classify the dataset as rich or poor, what might the eigenface look like, and how does it compare with an eigenface trained on human guesswork?
posted by pwnguin at 1:13 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
So, does Severe Clinical Depression Face skew me toward the Wealthy or the Poor face?
posted by Thorzdad at 1:16 PM on July 5, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 1:16 PM on July 5, 2017 [7 favorites]
So a small effect that's close to random chance but isn't.
Which is not what most people consider "reliably". If (the generic) you had a coin that gave you 53 heads out of 100 flips, would that be a "reliable" coin for winning bar bets?
(I blame Science Daily for that word, not the poster.)
posted by Etrigan at 1:20 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Which is not what most people consider "reliably". If (the generic) you had a coin that gave you 53 heads out of 100 flips, would that be a "reliable" coin for winning bar bets?
(I blame Science Daily for that word, not the poster.)
posted by Etrigan at 1:20 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I dunno, the people in the thumbnail all look like rich bastards, because they're wearing suits. Like a bunch of big old jerks.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:20 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:20 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
I went to try and fix my comment and now I think I might need to fix it more. Study 4 has 52% accuracy and 76 MTurk participants, Study 5B has 53% accuracy and 40 Canadian undergraduates, sorry.
I think the 53% figure given in the article is actually from the 53% raw hit rate given for Studies 1 and 2A in the first table, not an average of the different data sets (which looks like it'd be higher) or the signal detection figure A' which is what I was referring to earlier (and which I completely don't understand, FTR).
posted by peppercorn at 1:24 PM on July 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
I think the 53% figure given in the article is actually from the 53% raw hit rate given for Studies 1 and 2A in the first table, not an average of the different data sets (which looks like it'd be higher) or the signal detection figure A' which is what I was referring to earlier (and which I completely don't understand, FTR).
posted by peppercorn at 1:24 PM on July 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
Welp, this explains my lack of success on dating sites.
posted by Melismata at 1:26 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Melismata at 1:26 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm reminded of my religious childhood and a sort of epiphany I had at one point when I was probably only 10 years old or so.
Almost all of the most pious and financially successful adults in my church seem to have permanent frowns and scowls, and watching them crack a rare smile was sometimes alarming, because it looked nearly predatory or atavistic, and they only really seemed to crack a smile when they were gossiping about someone or judging them and - more often than not - their lack of righteousness and piety.
Over the years I've seen this perma-scowl (and I'm not really talking about RBF, here) on a wide variety of people who were arguably successful, even though it was really clear (to my empathy at least) that they were not only deeply unhappy and never satisfied with anything at all to the point that their entire lives were toxic, they couldn't stand to see anyone else happy or healthy and would go to incredible lengths to tear down or outright sabotage anyone else who wasn't successful yet miserable like themselves.
While I'm willing to give anyone a chance, and most of my favorite people have serious cases of RBF and generally forbidding visages or expressions - but taking note of people with this sort of permanent frown-scowl has served well as a warning for most of my life. It's rare that my intuition misses on this one.
Thankfully I have only had very few people like this in my life. Especially these days.
posted by loquacious at 1:36 PM on July 5, 2017 [9 favorites]
Almost all of the most pious and financially successful adults in my church seem to have permanent frowns and scowls, and watching them crack a rare smile was sometimes alarming, because it looked nearly predatory or atavistic, and they only really seemed to crack a smile when they were gossiping about someone or judging them and - more often than not - their lack of righteousness and piety.
Over the years I've seen this perma-scowl (and I'm not really talking about RBF, here) on a wide variety of people who were arguably successful, even though it was really clear (to my empathy at least) that they were not only deeply unhappy and never satisfied with anything at all to the point that their entire lives were toxic, they couldn't stand to see anyone else happy or healthy and would go to incredible lengths to tear down or outright sabotage anyone else who wasn't successful yet miserable like themselves.
While I'm willing to give anyone a chance, and most of my favorite people have serious cases of RBF and generally forbidding visages or expressions - but taking note of people with this sort of permanent frown-scowl has served well as a warning for most of my life. It's rare that my intuition misses on this one.
Thankfully I have only had very few people like this in my life. Especially these days.
posted by loquacious at 1:36 PM on July 5, 2017 [9 favorites]
Err, a modifier to my comment above.
I'm not at all saying that all successful people are unhappy like this at all. I've met tons of perfectly healthy, successful people who are a joy to be around.
The kind of financial success I'm talking about from my history with this church and group of people in particular likely involved a lot of MLM and soul-tainting shenanigans and that sort of terrible thing.
posted by loquacious at 1:40 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm not at all saying that all successful people are unhappy like this at all. I've met tons of perfectly healthy, successful people who are a joy to be around.
The kind of financial success I'm talking about from my history with this church and group of people in particular likely involved a lot of MLM and soul-tainting shenanigans and that sort of terrible thing.
posted by loquacious at 1:40 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I noticed this when Korean American me was living in Korea. People could generally tell that I was not Korean because "there was just something about my face." Something about the combination of a lifetime of American socialization and American cheese rendered my expressions un-Korean.
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:43 PM on July 5, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:43 PM on July 5, 2017 [8 favorites]
I don't have too much trouble believing this *could* be true, given being poor often has a physical cost, but it doesn't sound like a very reliable study for demonstrating it.
posted by tavella at 1:44 PM on July 5, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by tavella at 1:44 PM on July 5, 2017 [5 favorites]
Several studies indicate that once you have enough money to not be constantly stressed about it, having more doesn't reliably make people happier. In the US that figure is around $80k/year in most places (obviously that figure would have to be much higher in parts of the country where cost of living is dramatically more expensive).
Of course lots of other factors come in to play -- things like personal life circumstances, physical health, mental health, and your level of wealth relative to the people you compare yourself to.
posted by mrmurbles at 1:53 PM on July 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
Of course lots of other factors come in to play -- things like personal life circumstances, physical health, mental health, and your level of wealth relative to the people you compare yourself to.
posted by mrmurbles at 1:53 PM on July 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
Monocle scars.
That would be creases, my good chap.
posted by fairmettle at 1:54 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
That would be creases, my good chap.
posted by fairmettle at 1:54 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
...class is written into our faces, bodies and posture.
posted by Frowner
Uh huh.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:06 PM on July 5, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Frowner
Uh huh.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:06 PM on July 5, 2017 [6 favorites]
From peppercorn's link:
Abstract
Social class meaningfully impacts individuals’ life outcomes and daily interactions, and the mere perception of one’s socioeconomic standing can have significant ramifications. To better understand how people infer others’ social class, we therefore tested the legibility of class (operationalized as monetary income) from facial images, finding across 4 participant samples and 2 stimulus sets that perceivers categorized the faces of rich and poor targets significantly better than chance. Further investigation showed that perceivers categorize social class using minimal facial cues and employ a variety of stereotype-related impressions to make their judgments. Of these, attractiveness accurately cued higher social class in self-selected dating profile photos. However, only the stereotype that well-being positively relates to wealth served as a valid cue in neutral faces. Indeed, neutrally posed rich targets displayed more positive affect relative to poor targets and perceivers used this affective information to categorize their social class. Impressions of social class from these facial cues also influenced participants’ evaluations of the targets’ employability, demonstrating that face-based perceptions of social class may have important downstream consequences.
The Visibility of Social Class From Facial Cues (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317252320_The_Visibility_of_Social_Class_From_Facial_Cues [accessed Jul 5, 2017].
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:15 PM on July 5, 2017
Abstract
Social class meaningfully impacts individuals’ life outcomes and daily interactions, and the mere perception of one’s socioeconomic standing can have significant ramifications. To better understand how people infer others’ social class, we therefore tested the legibility of class (operationalized as monetary income) from facial images, finding across 4 participant samples and 2 stimulus sets that perceivers categorized the faces of rich and poor targets significantly better than chance. Further investigation showed that perceivers categorize social class using minimal facial cues and employ a variety of stereotype-related impressions to make their judgments. Of these, attractiveness accurately cued higher social class in self-selected dating profile photos. However, only the stereotype that well-being positively relates to wealth served as a valid cue in neutral faces. Indeed, neutrally posed rich targets displayed more positive affect relative to poor targets and perceivers used this affective information to categorize their social class. Impressions of social class from these facial cues also influenced participants’ evaluations of the targets’ employability, demonstrating that face-based perceptions of social class may have important downstream consequences.
The Visibility of Social Class From Facial Cues (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317252320_The_Visibility_of_Social_Class_From_Facial_Cues [accessed Jul 5, 2017].
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:15 PM on July 5, 2017
Hmm, my theory would have partially been due to better health and less stress for the well-off, but I just had another thought:
What if the rich and powerful can just walk around with stern faces because being or pretending to be happy and accommodating is not a critical survival skill anymore? Among folks that work in service oriented positions and/or need to interact with numerous strangers in order to get things or things done that they need on a daily basis, I would guess that your neutral expression is going to be at least more outwardly bubbly.
posted by FJT at 2:20 PM on July 5, 2017 [5 favorites]
What if the rich and powerful can just walk around with stern faces because being or pretending to be happy and accommodating is not a critical survival skill anymore? Among folks that work in service oriented positions and/or need to interact with numerous strangers in order to get things or things done that they need on a daily basis, I would guess that your neutral expression is going to be at least more outwardly bubbly.
posted by FJT at 2:20 PM on July 5, 2017 [5 favorites]
Which is not what most people consider "reliably". If (the generic) you had a coin that gave you 53 heads out of 100 flips, would that be a "reliable" coin for winning bar bets?
Depends on how many bar bets I'm planning to make, I guess. If it's a largish number, I (expect to) reliably come out ahead.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:33 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Depends on how many bar bets I'm planning to make, I guess. If it's a largish number, I (expect to) reliably come out ahead.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:33 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Just pulled off the shelf two volumes from different editions of Cassell's Popular Educator from... I can't remember, 1890-something I think one of them is and 1870- or 1880-something the other. A topic so important that it bore having new artwork commissioned for the revised article...
posted by Hal Mumkin at 2:54 PM on July 5, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Hal Mumkin at 2:54 PM on July 5, 2017 [5 favorites]
What if the rich and powerful can just walk around with stern faces because being or pretending to be happy and accommodating is not a critical survival skill anymore? Among folks that work in service oriented positions and/or need to interact with numerous strangers in order to get things or things done that they need on a daily basis, I would guess that your neutral expression is going to be at least more outwardly bubbly.
But the world isn't just poor people who have to be nice to rich people and rich people who don't have to be nice to poor people. I mean: intersectionality. Even within economic classes there are economic hierarchies and social hierarchies.
Maybe you drive a bus all day and have to be polite but the second you get home you're king of the castle: your wife and kids are financially dependent on you and live in fear of your temper. Or maybe you're like Trevor Noah: charming, rich, handsome -- but black, so you're profoundly aware that every single time you're hassled by the police (and it happens a lot) you damn well better be polite, or what happened to Philando Castile could happen to you.
posted by mrmurbles at 3:05 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
But the world isn't just poor people who have to be nice to rich people and rich people who don't have to be nice to poor people. I mean: intersectionality. Even within economic classes there are economic hierarchies and social hierarchies.
Maybe you drive a bus all day and have to be polite but the second you get home you're king of the castle: your wife and kids are financially dependent on you and live in fear of your temper. Or maybe you're like Trevor Noah: charming, rich, handsome -- but black, so you're profoundly aware that every single time you're hassled by the police (and it happens a lot) you damn well better be polite, or what happened to Philando Castile could happen to you.
posted by mrmurbles at 3:05 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
I was thinking the other day that you can usually guess pretty easily who owns property and who rents. The owners seem to carry themselves with a sense of being in their rightful place that pervades their body language, their ease of deportment and such. It's much more subtle than, say, arrogant swagger or alpha-male dominance displays or anything like that; their behaviour is, on one level, no different from the tenants and house-sharers, but they just seem more at ease in a subtle way.
posted by acb at 3:22 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 3:22 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I haven't read the article (sorry), but how did they determine that the causality wasn't reversed, that is, looking a certain way leads to being richer (not only is the "wealthy" look likely similar to an "intelligent" look, but you're also likely to look like your parents, so any subtly bias toward a certain look is likely to be compounded over generations as parental wealth leads to better-educated children, etc.). Did they control for this somehow?
posted by amtho at 3:39 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by amtho at 3:39 PM on July 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
I read somewhere long ago that before your late 20's/early 30's your face was your genes, and after that you're personality began to permanently impact your visage. After years of observation I believe this to be true (mostly in facial wrinkles, scowl/smile), and that could correlate somewhat with station/wealth
posted by achrise at 4:08 PM on July 5, 2017
posted by achrise at 4:08 PM on July 5, 2017
I haven't read the article (sorry), but how did they determine that the causality wasn't reversed, that is, looking a certain way leads to being richer (not only is the "wealthy" look likely similar to an "intelligent" look, but you're also likely to look like your parents, so any subtly bias toward a certain look is likely to be compounded over generations as parental wealth leads to better-educated children, etc.). Did they control for this somehow?
At least for the composite sample, the photos were of undergraduates, so your proposed genetic effect might've been present but their SESes were probably not of their own making at that point. Same goes for your comment, achrise--I expect even the dating profile samples were probably not older than late 20s/early 30s because that's how old most people on the sites are.
posted by peppercorn at 4:19 PM on July 5, 2017
At least for the composite sample, the photos were of undergraduates, so your proposed genetic effect might've been present but their SESes were probably not of their own making at that point. Same goes for your comment, achrise--I expect even the dating profile samples were probably not older than late 20s/early 30s because that's how old most people on the sites are.
posted by peppercorn at 4:19 PM on July 5, 2017
"Resting rich face" -- it even rhymes!
posted by wenestvedt at 4:59 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by wenestvedt at 4:59 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Meh. If you give me a random population sample, I'll guess the most beautiful white people are rich. That alone will push it to better-than-random.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:11 PM on July 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:11 PM on July 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
... Those percentage accuracies with those values of N would appear to be correctly classifying one more person than chance, no?
posted by PMdixon at 5:12 PM on July 5, 2017
posted by PMdixon at 5:12 PM on July 5, 2017
I had to search my favorites for this one:
"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve."
posted by klarck at 5:37 PM on July 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve."
posted by klarck at 5:37 PM on July 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
"...you get the face you deserve". (So, you get the life you deserve?)
Oh, boy—I have some serious issues with the above quote.
posted by she's not there at 5:53 PM on July 5, 2017 [10 favorites]
Oh, boy—I have some serious issues with the above quote.
posted by she's not there at 5:53 PM on July 5, 2017 [10 favorites]
Which is not what most people consider "reliably". If (the generic) you had a coin that gave you 53 heads out of 100 flips, would that be a "reliable" coin for winning bar bets?
You could run a casino on those odds -- I'd call that "reliable."
I noticed this when Korean American me was living in Korea. People could generally tell that I was not Korean because "there was just something about my face." Something about the combination of a lifetime of American socialization and American cheese rendered my expressions un-Korean.
But could they have done it with just a photo of your face, minus all the information you get from body language, how someone dresses, how they talk, etc?
posted by Dip Flash at 6:04 PM on July 5, 2017
You could run a casino on those odds -- I'd call that "reliable."
I noticed this when Korean American me was living in Korea. People could generally tell that I was not Korean because "there was just something about my face." Something about the combination of a lifetime of American socialization and American cheese rendered my expressions un-Korean.
But could they have done it with just a photo of your face, minus all the information you get from body language, how someone dresses, how they talk, etc?
posted by Dip Flash at 6:04 PM on July 5, 2017
Surely it's the smooth, tasty-looking skin of the rich that gives them away.
posted by clawsoon at 6:09 PM on July 5, 2017
posted by clawsoon at 6:09 PM on July 5, 2017
Agree with the skepticism expressed about the paper (at least "the paper as summarized by Science Daily." This is one of the weird ones where the result is unobjectionable to me--I completely believe people are better than random--but it doesn't sound that compelling. With such a small effect size, even if it's real, it's more interesting as a comment on the cognitive ability to detect subtle things in faces than for its real world impact on poor people--even as far as first impressions and biases go I'm 100% certain that in a real context other cues (speech, dress, etc.) will be much bigger.
I'll also add that they seem to go from a putative effect, to speculation about the cause maybe being emotion, to drawing conclusions as if the cause were definitely emotions. A really common type of sloppiness in pop sci discussion--just because a just so story is plausible does not mean you have evidence for it being true!
Depends on how many bar bets I'm planning to make, I guess. If it's a largish number, I (expect to) reliably come out ahead.
Yeah, I'd say what is reliable is not your ability to predict the outcome of a bet, but your ability to depict the *frequency* of outcomes.
posted by mark k at 8:28 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'll also add that they seem to go from a putative effect, to speculation about the cause maybe being emotion, to drawing conclusions as if the cause were definitely emotions. A really common type of sloppiness in pop sci discussion--just because a just so story is plausible does not mean you have evidence for it being true!
Depends on how many bar bets I'm planning to make, I guess. If it's a largish number, I (expect to) reliably come out ahead.
Yeah, I'd say what is reliable is not your ability to predict the outcome of a bet, but your ability to depict the *frequency* of outcomes.
posted by mark k at 8:28 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Several studies indicate that once you have enough money to not be constantly stressed about it, having more doesn't reliably make people happier. In the US that figure is around $80k/year in most places (obviously that figure would have to be much higher in parts of the country where cost of living is dramatically more expensive).
I'm not up on the actual literature in any detail but the ones I've seen have always relied on self-reported happiness, which is philosophically challenging. If you and I both report as "seven out of ten" are we necessarily equally happy?
It'd be really interesting if the emotional interpretation of the study is true, because it might provide objective evidence for or against the self-reported values.
posted by mark k at 8:35 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm not up on the actual literature in any detail but the ones I've seen have always relied on self-reported happiness, which is philosophically challenging. If you and I both report as "seven out of ten" are we necessarily equally happy?
It'd be really interesting if the emotional interpretation of the study is true, because it might provide objective evidence for or against the self-reported values.
posted by mark k at 8:35 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Meh. If you give me a random population sample, I'll guess the most beautiful white people are rich. That alone will push it to better-than-random.
Not really, though. Trump, Bannon, the cabinet, the senate, CEOs, -- you put them in ratty t-shirts and jeans, you'd have to look at their teeth to know they're not poor.
Poverty wrecks beauty over time, but being wealthy doesn't confer it. IME beauty is evenly distributed socioeconomically among the young. Wealth gives the middle-aged a leg up in grooming and preservation but you can only preserve what you start out with.
posted by mrmurbles at 8:37 PM on July 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
Not really, though. Trump, Bannon, the cabinet, the senate, CEOs, -- you put them in ratty t-shirts and jeans, you'd have to look at their teeth to know they're not poor.
Poverty wrecks beauty over time, but being wealthy doesn't confer it. IME beauty is evenly distributed socioeconomically among the young. Wealth gives the middle-aged a leg up in grooming and preservation but you can only preserve what you start out with.
posted by mrmurbles at 8:37 PM on July 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
You can change "what you start out with" via plastic surgery, if you have the wealth.
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:59 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:59 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve."
I would not be surprised if speaking this bit of undirected human pessimism would get you the face you deserve in many crowds.
posted by clockzero at 12:15 AM on July 6, 2017 [1 favorite]
I would not be surprised if speaking this bit of undirected human pessimism would get you the face you deserve in many crowds.
posted by clockzero at 12:15 AM on July 6, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's funny how many people are dumping on that quote without looking up who said it. It's Coco Chanel -- and in context, you understand that she's praising the faces of older women, like herself.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 2:17 AM on July 6, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 2:17 AM on July 6, 2017 [2 favorites]
Another flawed aspect of the study design is that it talks about the ability of "people" to classify faces as rich or poor. But it there is no analysis of individual variability between the performance of observers. I had started off by looking at the set of faces that were used to illustrate the article and - like others apparently - was rather looking forward to trying my hand at dividing them into richies and poors. But doing this is surely a skill as well as an intuition: am I able to tell an expensive haircut from a poor one? What about telling cheap make-up from expensive? Or even a cheap suit and tie from a high quality one? And - since I'm a Brit and these are (maybe) Americans - are there any other cultural clues I might be missing out on?
To be a good judge on these parameters you have to have specific knowledge - and also be good at looking - as a general skill. Most people are not going to make it - but I'd be willing to bet that the best observers could do considerably better than 53% correct.
posted by rongorongo at 2:29 AM on July 6, 2017
To be a good judge on these parameters you have to have specific knowledge - and also be good at looking - as a general skill. Most people are not going to make it - but I'd be willing to bet that the best observers could do considerably better than 53% correct.
posted by rongorongo at 2:29 AM on July 6, 2017
Most people are not going to make it - but I'd be willing to bet that the best observers could do considerably better than 53% correct.
I wonder how those "super recognizers" who can match faces instantly would do on this test? (Previous; previouser.)
posted by Dip Flash at 5:28 AM on July 6, 2017
I wonder how those "super recognizers" who can match faces instantly would do on this test? (Previous; previouser.)
posted by Dip Flash at 5:28 AM on July 6, 2017
Resting prole face.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 6:21 AM on July 6, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Kitty Stardust at 6:21 AM on July 6, 2017 [4 favorites]
It's funny how many people are dumping on that quote without looking up who said it. It's Coco Chanel -- and in context, you understand that she's praising the faces of older women, like herself.
I am not so sure that the face Coco Chanel deserved at 50 was at all as attractive as the one she ended up with.
posted by rongorongo at 6:53 AM on July 6, 2017 [1 favorite]
I am not so sure that the face Coco Chanel deserved at 50 was at all as attractive as the one she ended up with.
posted by rongorongo at 6:53 AM on July 6, 2017 [1 favorite]
Check your visage.
posted by Segundus at 8:04 AM on July 6, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 8:04 AM on July 6, 2017 [3 favorites]
It's funny how many people are dumping on that quote without looking up who said it. It's Coco Chanel -- and in context, you understand that she's praising the faces of older women, like herself.
Yes, she was praising the faces of women like herself -- older, incredibly wealthy and privileged, and let's not leave out the thing where she's suspected of being a Nazi collaborator. She's more of an Ivanka, albeit with childhood poverty and an actual work ethic, but let's not pretend she was talking about folks who shop at the dollar store when she was nattering on about the faces we deserve, eh?
posted by palomar at 8:20 AM on July 6, 2017 [6 favorites]
Yes, she was praising the faces of women like herself -- older, incredibly wealthy and privileged, and let's not leave out the thing where she's suspected of being a Nazi collaborator. She's more of an Ivanka, albeit with childhood poverty and an actual work ethic, but let's not pretend she was talking about folks who shop at the dollar store when she was nattering on about the faces we deserve, eh?
posted by palomar at 8:20 AM on July 6, 2017 [6 favorites]
Harvey Kilobit: I had admittedly forgotten the source of the quote. Details re who said it and the context are irrelevant to my objection that it implies that one gets the life they deserve.
Case in point: Coco Chanel. (Thanks for the link rongorongo, though this may have forever put me off my long-time favorite, Chanel #5.)
posted by she's not there at 12:17 PM on July 6, 2017
Case in point: Coco Chanel. (Thanks for the link rongorongo, though this may have forever put me off my long-time favorite, Chanel #5.)
posted by she's not there at 12:17 PM on July 6, 2017
A very preliminary article in a very interesting emerging field — computational physiognomy. Some other recent threads:
Nominative determinism?
Do you look like your name? People can match names to faces of strangers with surprising accuracy
If your name is Fred, do you look like a Fred? You might — and others might think so, too. New research published by the American Psychological Association has found that people appear to be better than chance at correctly matching people's names to their faces.
We Look Like Our Names: The Manifestation of Name Stereotypes in Facial Appearance by Zwebner, Yonat; Sellier, Anne-Laure; Rosenfeld, Nir; Goldenberg, Jacob; Mayo, Ruth.
Thanks to AI, Computers Can Now See Your Health Problems
Rare Genetic Disorders Could Be Diagnosed With Facial Recognition Facial Dysmorphology Analysis
physiognomy:
Predicting First Impressions with Deep Learning - Arxiv
Machine-Vision Algorithm Learns to Judge People by Their Faces - MIT
Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images - Arxiv
Neural Network Learns to Identify Criminals by Their Faces - MIT
Can face classifiers make a reliable inference on criminality? - Physorg
[BOOK] The Criminal by Havelock Ellis, 1890
Page 87: Criminal Physiognomy
Frontispiece: composite photograph of twenty criminals
[BOOK] Criminal man by Cesare Lombroso, 1911
posted by 0rison at 12:01 AM on July 8, 2017
Nominative determinism?
Do you look like your name? People can match names to faces of strangers with surprising accuracy
If your name is Fred, do you look like a Fred? You might — and others might think so, too. New research published by the American Psychological Association has found that people appear to be better than chance at correctly matching people's names to their faces.
We Look Like Our Names: The Manifestation of Name Stereotypes in Facial Appearance by Zwebner, Yonat; Sellier, Anne-Laure; Rosenfeld, Nir; Goldenberg, Jacob; Mayo, Ruth.
Thanks to AI, Computers Can Now See Your Health Problems
Rare Genetic Disorders Could Be Diagnosed With Facial Recognition Facial Dysmorphology Analysis
physiognomy:
Predicting First Impressions with Deep Learning - Arxiv
Machine-Vision Algorithm Learns to Judge People by Their Faces - MIT
Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images - Arxiv
Neural Network Learns to Identify Criminals by Their Faces - MIT
Can face classifiers make a reliable inference on criminality? - Physorg
[BOOK] The Criminal by Havelock Ellis, 1890
Page 87: Criminal Physiognomy
Frontispiece: composite photograph of twenty criminals
[BOOK] Criminal man by Cesare Lombroso, 1911
posted by 0rison at 12:01 AM on July 8, 2017
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posted by Fish Sauce at 12:26 PM on July 5, 2017 [77 favorites]