When Perception Becomes Reality: The Nuanced Relationship between Attractiveness and Trustworthiness

99 adolescents participated in research examining the relationship between attractiveness, typicality and trustworthiness. A stimulus-based, 10-question survey asked subjects to choose the more trustworthy target between two female faces. Regression analyses with DFT (distance-from-typical-face) and judgement type as x-variables suggest that typicality predicts trustworthiness. However, the attractiveness-trustworthiness relationship is nuanced.