Review nº 22

Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Date of publication: Tuesday November 18, 2008


Review nº 22: Article ‘New research tells us we judge people on their looks. Watch out for Father Christmas and Gordon Brown’


Could it be possible to do what we have always been told not to do? Is it possible to judge people on their looks? Though we are always told not to judge people on their looks a new research states that we can, in fact, judge people based on their appearance. This topic is developed in the article ‘New research tells us we judge people on their looks. Watch out for Father Christmas and Gordon Brown’, published in The Guardian newspaper.
Scientists have discovered that men with rounded faces, soft jawlines, thin eyebrows, bright eyes, small nostrils, large mouths, thin lips, a warm, bright complexion and no facial hair are considered the most trustworthy. The research must have been restricted to white male faces, otherwise things would probably have been frightfully complicated. Even within this restricted group, results are fairly confusing. We have to think carefully about our own often misplaced perceptions of people based on facial characteristics. The research is not actually telling us people are untrustworthy because of the way they look, just that we assume they are untrustworthy.
I agree with the writers opinion about such kind of research. It seems to have been among a selected group of people with similar features, or else it would be considered very discriminating. Apart from that we can see from the authors point of view that such researchs are not as thrustworthy so as to believe blindy on their statements. This may be due to the fact that it seems to be based in very subjective opinions rather than scientific serious research.
In conclusion, this article is an invitation to reflectionate on the assumptions people do based only on others’ physical appearance, or the way they dress and talk. I think that it is only by face to face interactions that we will come to have a hint of how trustworthy people can be. We can not judge the innerself based only on physical appearence.