ACCURACY IN FACE PERCEPTION - A VIEW FROM ECOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

It is well documented that people form reliable and robust impressions of a stranger's personality traits on the basis of facial appearance. The propensity to judge character from the face is typically thought to reflect cultural beliefs about mythical relations between aspects o f facial appearance and personality. However, recent cross-cultural an d developmental research does not support the mythical, cultural stere otype hypothesis. An alternative explanation of the data is that conse nsus in face-based impressions exists because those judgments are part ially accurate. In this article, we explore the theoretical rationale for this ''kernel-of-truth'' hypothesis, review research that indicate s that first impressions based on facial appearance are partially accu rate, and discuss the potential mechanisms that may yield links betwee n aspects of facial appearance and personality.