The perception of trustworthiness in faces

This work aims to investigate how individuals evaluate other individuals’ trustworthiness based on facial appearance, and which neural and social mechanisms are involved in such evaluation. In doing this, we will see how people spontaneously infer personality and individual characteristics from face appearance, and that it is possible to detect facial traits related to trustworthiness. In this process a big role is done by the amygdala, which is activated when the individual encounters new people and automatically responds to some of their facial features. Here we are particularly interested in the relation between perceived attractiveness and trustworthiness, as people seem to be instantly evaluating attractiveness when meeting strangers. We will see how facial attractiveness can influence perceived trustworthiness, and explore the role of eye colour in this process.