Face-ism and the Effects of Facial Prominence Manipulation

Abstract

Previous research has found that the media tends to portray men in terms of their faces and women in terms of their bodies. The measure of this face to body ratio is called facial prominence, or face-ism. High face-ism has been associated with higher perceptions of positive attributes. In this study, online survey participants were asked to help design a prestigious company’s print advertisement. Participants were shown three different stimulus persons, each in a high face-ism condition and a low face-ism condition, and were asked to choose which image of the person best portrayed dominance, intelligence, attractiveness, and ambition. Surprisingly, participants more frequently chose the low face-ism images of the stimuli to represent these traits. Participants showed preference for male stimuli with high facial prominence and preference for female stimuli with low facial prominence. No significant relationship was found between participants’ amount of daily media consumption and facial prominence preference. No significant relationship was found between facial prominence of the stimuli and participants’ ability to remember detail about the stimuli. Further research is warranted because facial prominence manipulation has many potential effects and the existing research on the topic is inconsistent.