Baby face
Friedman and Zebrowitz (1992) suggest that sex-role stereotyping is tied to facial maturity. People of both genders with "babyish" faces are perceived as warmer and more loving, and women tend to have more babyish faces than men. In their experiment, they found that sex-role stereotyping was weakened or even reversed when the difference in "facial maturity" was reversed.
Zebrowitz and Montepare's (2005) review for Science points out that "such features as a round face, large eyes, small nose, high forehead, and small chin" appear to be universal, and influences viewers opinions of competence (lower) and integrity (higher). In situations of increased threat, Pettijohn and Tesser (2005) found that less neotenous (baby-like) features were preferred. Baby-faced men, according to Todorov et al (2005) tend to be slightly more intelligent and better educated than their mature-faced peers.
Female-to-male (FTM) transsexuals tend to be a little baby-faced. I knew that, and I knew why, but I didn't realize that it could be influencing our social environment this profoundly...
I've just spent 5 minutes typing and re-typing this paragraph, and I can't find a good way to put it. So, I'll warn you, the next few sentences even offend me: MTFs have it a lot harder than FTMs. This research makes me wonder if there are layers to this difference in social outcome that are associated with our facial structures. Baby-faced men get read as honest, whereas mature-faced women get read as harsh. How much of the MTF reputation for bitchiness is based on this social stereotype? How much of the FTM reputation for soft-spokenness? How much of our "socialized behavior patterns" could be based in facial observer bias?
Zebrowitz and Montepare's (2005) review for Science points out that "such features as a round face, large eyes, small nose, high forehead, and small chin" appear to be universal, and influences viewers opinions of competence (lower) and integrity (higher). In situations of increased threat, Pettijohn and Tesser (2005) found that less neotenous (baby-like) features were preferred. Baby-faced men, according to Todorov et al (2005) tend to be slightly more intelligent and better educated than their mature-faced peers.
Female-to-male (FTM) transsexuals tend to be a little baby-faced. I knew that, and I knew why, but I didn't realize that it could be influencing our social environment this profoundly...
I've just spent 5 minutes typing and re-typing this paragraph, and I can't find a good way to put it. So, I'll warn you, the next few sentences even offend me: MTFs have it a lot harder than FTMs. This research makes me wonder if there are layers to this difference in social outcome that are associated with our facial structures. Baby-faced men get read as honest, whereas mature-faced women get read as harsh. How much of the MTF reputation for bitchiness is based on this social stereotype? How much of the FTM reputation for soft-spokenness? How much of our "socialized behavior patterns" could be based in facial observer bias?