Economic status cues from clothes affect perceived competence from faces — The Habit Does Make The Monk in the End

Economic status cues from clothes affect perceived competence from faces. DongWon Oh, Eldar Shafir & Alexander Todorov. Nature Human Behaviour, December 9 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0782-4

Abstract: Impressions of competence from faces predict important real-world outcomes, including electoral success and chief executive officer selection. Presumed competence is associated with social status. Here we show that subtle economic status cues in clothes affect perceived competence from faces. In nine studies, people rated the competence of faces presented in frontal headshots. Faces were shown with different upper-body clothing rated by independent judges as looking ‘richer’ or ‘poorer’, although not notably perceived as such when explicitly described. The same face when seen with ‘richer’ clothes was judged significantly more competent than with ‘poorer’ clothes. The effect persisted even when perceivers were exposed to the stimuli briefly (129 ms), warned that clothing cues are non-informative and instructed to ignore the clothes (in one study, with considerable incentives). These findings demonstrate the uncontrollable effect of economic status cues on person perception. They add yet another hurdle to the challenges faced by low-status individuals.


Discussion 
Across studies, we found that economic status clothing cues influenced competence judgements of faces. The effect persisted when faces were presented very briefly (that is, 129 ms), when informa-tion was provided related to the person’s profession and income, when formal clothing was replaced by more casual clothing, when participants were advised to ignore the clothing, when they were warned that there was no relationship between clothing and com-petence before choosing rather than rating faces, and when partici-pants were offered a monetary reward for accuracy. These findings support the notion of uncontrollable effects of minor contextual cues in face perception, and are consistent with a large body of research that finds people spontaneously encode the context surrounding a face when making social judgements10,11,13,19 (while our focus has been on competence judgements, similar, if attenuated, effects can be observed for other traits, such as trustworthiness; see Supplementary Results and Supplementary Fig. 8). 

The strong and persistent effects we observed are consistent with theoretical work16,18 and empirical findings16,17, showing a robust tendency for people of lower economic status to be perceived as less competent and to be disrespected20, often leading to social exclu-sion with detrimental effects on physical and emotional health21. Poverty is a place where many challenges—physical, social and psychological—converge: being perceived as of lower competence and disrespected adds to those challenges, and can exacerbate cognitive load and hamper performance, thereby potentially prov-ing self-fulfilling22,23. 

To overcome a bias, one needs not only to be aware of it but to have the time, attentional resources and motivation to counteract the bias24. In our studies, we warned participants about the potential bias, presented them with varying lengths of exposure, gave them additional information about the targets and offered financial incen-tives, all intended to alleviate the effect. None of these interventions were effective, however. While it is possible that higher incentives and greater experience could reduce the bias, its persistence in the face of our various manipulations is impressive. 

The present findings demonstrate that economic status cues from clothes naturally intervene in people’s assessments of compe-tence. This is consistent with research showing that people associ-ate status with competence in stereotypes of social groups16,25. This strong status–competence association suggests that any attempt at independen manipulation of the apparent competence and eco-nomic status of a person may need to resort to explicit and salient manipulations, rather than fairly subtle cues. 

The poor clothing cues in our studies were benign compared to real-world poverty signals. Recent work has shown that people can accurately guess others’ social class from brief exposure to photos or speech recordings26. We might thus expect people wearing truly impoverished clothes or exhibiting other peripheral signs of poverty to encounter substantial low-competence stereotyping, both when perceivers think fast as well as when they have more time to deliberate.Stereotypes about rich and poor individuals are common, prom-inent and consequential. Just as the clothing cues in our studies led to differential disambiguation of facial competence, views about a person’s economic background can lead to notably different inter-pretations of what is otherwise ambiguous performance27. Beyond their immediate impact, an important question for future research concerns the extent to which we might be able to transcend first impressions.