How much does physical appearance say about the psychological adjustment of competent and dysfunctional children?

Presents a study in which three sets of photographs of socially competent, aggressive, and anxious preschoolers were rated by college students (n = 15 0 raters per set), blind to the children's group membership. This was done to assess the extent to which adults are able to make valid and reliable ev aluations of children's psychological adjustment on the basis of physical a ppearance alone. Sets 1 and 2 were photographs of different children taken under the same conditions and providing both facial and nonfacial cues. Set s 2 and 3 were of the same children taken under conditions that varied as t o the amount of nonfacial cues they provided. Results showed that (a) socia lly competent children were judged to be better adjusted than their dysfunc tional peers (i.e., more competent, less aggressive, less anxious, and less likely to have emotional or behavioral problems); (b) within the dysfuncti onal group, aggressive and anxious children were distinguished in ways that correspond closely to what is known about them from behavioral and clinica l research; (c) irrespective of group membership, girls and boys were gener ally distinguished in ways that reflect normative beliefs about gender diff erences from social and developmental research; (d) group differences in ra tings of psychological adjustment were generally comparable across photogra ph sets and could not be accounted for by differences in the children's per ceived physical attractiveness; and (e) raters reported that they relied ma inly on the children's expression, eyes, and posture to make their judgment s of adjustment. These results replicate and extend earlier findings based on 1 of the 3 photograph sets (Serketich & Dumas, 1997). They suggest that when first impressions matter, competent children are at an advantage and t heir dysfunctional peers at a disadvantage even before their actual behavio r comes to confirm or to invalidate these impressions. Theoretical and clin ical implications of the findings are discussed.