Context effects of facial appearance on attitudes toward mentally handicapped persons

The influence of facial appearance on social attitudes was examined by expo sing participants to the faces of three target persons with or without devi ant facial features, posing happy, angry or sad facial expressions, or a mi xture of these expressions. When they displayed negative emotional expressi ons, facially deviant targets were judged more negatively than non-deviant targets. Irrespective of emotional expression and level of personal experie nce, participants expressed more negative attitudes toward mentally handica pped persons in general after exposure to deviant faces than after exposure to non-deviant races, or in the absence of exposure. However, correlationa l analyses suggested that only at low levels personal experience were attit udes influenced by previously formed impressions of deviant exemplars. Resu lts are discussed in terms of the motivational relevance of physical featur es in stigmatization, and contest and exemplar effects in stereotyping and attitude measurement. Practical implications are also discussed.