Lack of Support for the Association between Facial Shape and Aggression: A Reappraisal Based on a Worldwide Population Genetics Perspective

Antisocial and criminal behaviors are multifactorial traits whose interpretation relies on multiple disciplines. Since these interpretations may have social, moral and legal implications, a constant review of the evidence is necessary before any scientific claim is considered as truth. A recent study proposed that men with wider faces relative to facial height (fWHR) are more likely to develop unethical behaviour mediated by a psychological sense of power. This research was based on reports suggesting that sexual dimorphism and selection would be responsible for a correlation between fWHR and aggression. Here we show that 4,960 individuals from 94 modern human populations belonging to a vast array of genetic and cultural contexts do not display significant amounts of fWHR sexual dimorphism. Further analyses using populations with associated ethnographical records as well as samples of male prisoners of the Mexico City Federal Penitentiary condemned by crimes of variable level of inter-personal aggression (homicide, robbery, and minor faults) did not show significant evidence, suggesting that populations/individuals with higher levels of bellicosity, aggressive behaviour, or power-mediated behaviour display greater fWHR. Finally, a regression analysis of fWHR on individual's fitness showed no significant correlation between this facial trait and reproductive success. Overall, our results suggest that facial attributes are poor predictors of aggressive behaviour, or at least, that sexual selection was weak enough to leave a signal on patterns of between- and within-sex and population facial variation.

• Publication year

  2013

• Venue

  PLoS ONE

• Publication date

  2013-01-09

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0052317PMID 23326328PMCID 3541377
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• The developing brain and neural plasticity: Implications for normality, psychopathology, and resilience.

  2015cited by this paper
• Facial attractiveness.

  2014cited by this paper
• Face Structure Predicts Cooperation

  2012cited by this paper
• Facial width-to-height ratio in a Turkish population is not sexually dimorphic and is unrelated to aggressive behavior

  2012cited by this paper
• Male facial width is associated with death by contact violence: narrow-faced males are more likely to die from contact violence

  2012cited by this paper
• Bad to the bone: facial structure predicts unethical behaviour

  2012influential reference
• PERVASIVE GENETIC INTEGRATION DIRECTS THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SKULL SHAPE

  2012cited by this paper
• A Lack of Sexual Dimorphism in Width-to-Height Ratio in White European Faces Using 2D Photographs, 3D Scans, and Anthropometry

  2012cited by this paper
• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

  2012influential reference
• Anthropometric correlates of human anger

  2012cited by this paper
• Body weight, not facial width-to-height ratio, predicts aggression in pro hockey players

  2012cited by this paper
• No evidence for sexual dimorphism of facial width-to-height ratio in four large adult samples

  2012cited by this paper
• A Face Only an Investor Could Love

  2011cited by this paper
• Evaluating microevolutionary models for the early settlement of the New World: the importance of recurrent gene flow with Asia.

  2011cited by this paper
• Beauty and the beast: mechanisms of sexual selection in humans

  2010cited by this paper
• Does Masculinity Matter? The Contribution of Masculine Face Shape to Male Attractiveness in Humans

  2010cited by this paper
• The influence of masticatory loading on craniofacial morphology: A test case across technological transitions in the Ohio valley.

  2010cited by this paper
• Heritability of human cranial dimensions: comparing the evolvability of different cranial regions

  2009cited by this paper
• Testosterone responses to competition in men are related to facial masculinity

  2009cited by this paper
• Did Warfare Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?

  2009cited by this paper
• Facial Structure Is a Reliable Cue of Aggressive Behavior

  2009cited by this paper
• The peopling of America: craniofacial shape variation on a continental scale and its interpretation from an interdisciplinary view.

  2008cited by this paper
• East-West cranial differentiation in pre-Columbian populations from Central and North America.

  2008cited by this paper
• In your face: facial metrics predict aggressive behaviour in the laboratory and in varsity and professional hockey players

  2008cited by this paper
• Detection of a population replacement at the Classic–Postclassic transition in Mexico

  2007cited by this paper
• Testosterone and human aggression: an evaluation of the challenge hypothesis.

  2006cited by this paper
• East-West cranial differentiation in pre-Columbian human populations of South America.

  2006cited by this paper
• The Measurement of Sexual Selection Using Bateman's Principles: An Experimental Test in the Sex-Role-Reversed Pipefish Syngnathus typhle1

  2005cited by this paper
• Evolution in Four Dimensions

  2005cited by this paper
• Wide faces or large canines? The attractive versus the aggressive primate

  2004cited by this paper
• Familiarity Breeds Attraction: Effects of Exposure on the Attractiveness of Typical and Distinctive Faces

  2004cited by this paper
• Patterns of phenotypic covariation and correlation in modern humans as viewed from morphological integration.

  2004cited by this paper
• Evolution, Gender, and Rape

  2004cited by this paper
• Early peopling and evolutionary diversification in America

  2003cited by this paper
• How useful is the culture concept in early hominid studies

  2003cited by this paper
• Craniometric evidence for Palaeoamerican survival in Baja California

  2003cited by this paper
• Origin of Fueguian‐Patagonians: An approach to population history and structure using R matrix and matrix permutation methods

  2002cited by this paper
• Craniometric variation and the settlement of the Americas: testing hypotheses by means of R-matrix and matrix correlation analyses.

  2001cited by this paper
• Violence, ritual, and reproduction: culture and context in surma dueling

  1999cited by this paper
• Facial attractiveness.

  1999cited by this paper
• Genetic drift and gene flow in post-famine Ireland.

  1997cited by this paper
• Biometric Evidence that Sexual Selection Has Shaped the Hominin Face

  1997cited by this paper
• ADAPTIVE RADIATION ALONG GENETIC LINES OF LEAST RESISTANCE

  1996cited by this paper
• Craniometric variation, genetic theory, and modern human origins.

  1994cited by this paper
• CD

  1992cited by this paper
• Skull shapes and the map: Craniometric analyses in the dispersion of modern homo (Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Volume 79). By W. W. Howells. 189 pp. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1989, $35.00 (cloth), $14.95 (paper)

  1991cited by this paper
• Cranial Variation in Man: A Study by Multivariate Analysis of Patterns of Difference Among Recent Human Populations

  1975cited by this paper
• Ethnographic Atlas: A Summary

  1967cited by this paper
• L'uomo delinquente

  year unknowncited by this paper
• Sexual Selection

  year unknowncited by this paper

• Facial features and environmental strategy: How aggressive CEOs respond to regulatory changes in carbon emissions?

  2025cites this paper
• Relative facial width, and its association with canine size and body mass among chimpanzees and bonobos: Implications for understanding facial width‐to‐height ratio expression among human populations

  2024cites this paper
• Facial Masculinity and Academic Research Performance

  2023cites this paper
• Predictably competitive? What faces can tell us about competitive behavior

  2023cites this paper
• What’s in a face? Facial appearance associated with emergence but not success in entrepreneurship

  2022cites this paper
• Facial and body sexual dimorphism are not interconnected in the Maasai

  2022cites this paper
• Are facial width-to-height ratio, 2D:4D digit ratio and skeletal muscle mass related to men dominant behavior in the Chicken Game?

  2022cites this paper
• Facial Metrics, Aggression, and the Use of Military Force

  2022cites this paper
• Facial width to height ratio and perceived aggression: The disjunction effect of horizontal and vertical components

  2022cites this paper
• A meta-analysis of the association between male dimorphism and fitness outcomes in humans

  2022cites this paper
• E-perceptions and Business ‘Mating’: The Communication Effects of the Relative Width of Males’ Faces in Business Portraits

  2021cites this paper
• Facial width to height ratio predicts physical aggression in committed relationships in men and dominance in women in China

  2020cites this paper
• Is threat in the way they move? Influences of static and gait information on threat judgments of unknown people

  2020cites this paper
• Is male dimorphism under sexual selection in humans? A meta-analysis

  2020cites this paper
• Was facial width-to-height ratio subject to sexual selection pressures? A life course approach

  2020influential citation
• The craniofacial indicators of aggression: a cross-sectional multiparametric anthropometry study.

  2020cites this paper
• Masculinity matters (but mostly if you're muscular): A meta-analysis of the relationships between sexually dimorphic traits in men and mating/reproductive success

  2020cites this paper
• Dominant leaders and the political psychology of followership.

  2020cites this paper
• Critique on the “Manager Effects” Research and Implications for Management Accounting Research

  2019cites this paper
• Recognising faces but not traits: Accurate personality judgment from faces is unrelated to superior face memory

  2019cites this paper
• The Many Faces of Trustworthiness: Accuracy and Inaccuracy in Predicting Deception from Facial Appearance

  2019cites this paper
• THREATENING MEASURES, AT FACE VALUE: Electrophysiology Indicating Confounds of the Facial Width-to-Height Ratio

  2019cites this paper
• Facial features and unethical behavior – Doped athletes show higher facial width-to-height ratios than non-doping sanctioned athletes

  2019cites this paper
• Is threat in the way they move? Influences of static and gait information on threat judgments of unknown people

  2019cites this paper
• References

  2019cites this paper
• Does Facial Width-to-Height Ratio Predict Aggressive Behavior in Association Football?

  2018influential citation
• Facial width-to-height ratio as a cue of threat: An ERP study

  2018cites this paper
• Dominance biases in the perception and memory for the faces of powerholders, with consequences for social inferences

  2018cites this paper
• Sexual dimorphism of facial width-to-height ratio in human skulls and faces: A meta-analytical approach

  2017cites this paper
• Within-Person Variability in Social Evaluation

  2017cites this paper
• Does facial width-to-height ratio predict male offender aggression?

  2017cites this paper
• Seeing and knowing others: the impact of social ties on economic interactions

  2017cites this paper
• Studying Indigenous Brazil: The Xavante and the Human Sciences, 1958-2015

  2017cites this paper
• The facial width‐to‐height ratio determines interpersonal distance preferences in the observer

  2017cites this paper
• Nasal airflow simulations suggest convergent adaptation in Neanderthals and modern humans

  2017cites this paper
• Deep Landmarking: Reconocimiento automático de estructuras anatómicas por medio de morfometría geométrica

  2017cites this paper
• How components of facial width to height ratio differently contribute to the perception of social traits

  2017cites this paper
• Predictably Angry - Facial Cues Provide a Credible Signal of Destructive Behavior

  2016cites this paper
• Social status in humans : differentiating the cues to dominance and prestige in men and women

  2016cites this paper
• Social traits and facial information : behavioral and neuronal evidence within the framework of phylogenetic and clinical studies

  2016cites this paper
• Perceptions of intelligence and the attractiveness halo

  2016cites this paper
• Does facial width-to-height ratio predict Japanese professional football players’ athletic performance?

  2016cites this paper
• THE FACIAL WIDTH-TO-HEIGHT RATIO AND ITS ROLE IN ADVERTISEMENTS AND ASSESSMENTS OF THREAT POTENTIAL

  2016influential citation
• Facial Width-To-Height Ratio (fWHR) Is Not Associated with Adolescent Testosterone Levels

  2016cites this paper
• Does the facial width-to-height ratio map onto variability in men's testosterone concentrations?

  2016cites this paper
• Diversificação craniofacial em morcegos filostomídeos : um estudo de associação genótipo-fenótipo através do gene RUNX2

  2016cites this paper
• Predicting Physical Features and Diseases by DNA Analysis: Current Advances and Future Challenges

  2016cites this paper
• The Study of Relationship between Facial Width-to-Height Ratio and Aggression

  2015cites this paper
• Evidence from Meta-Analyses of the Facial Width-to-Height Ratio as an Evolved Cue of Threat

  2015influential citation
• Facing our ancestors: judgements of aggression are consistent and related to the facial width-to-height ratio in men irrespective of beards

  2015cites this paper
• Perceived and experimentally manipulated status moderates the relationship between facial structure and risk-taking

  2015cites this paper
• Facial Width-to-Height Ratio in a Large Sample of Commonwealth Games Athletes

  2015cites this paper
• Chapter 6 – Human Vulnerability for Physical and Behavioral Traits

  2015cites this paper
• Cooperation, networks and emotions: Three essays in behavioral economics

  2015cites this paper
• Social attributions from faces: determinants, consequences, accuracy, and functional significance.

  2015cites this paper
• Men’s Facial Width-to-Height Ratio Predicts Aggression: A Meta-Analysis

  2015cites this paper
• Misleading First Impressions

  2014cites this paper
• Masculinity, Testosterone, and Financial Misreporting

  2014cites this paper
• Social status, facial structure, and assertiveness in brown capuchin monkeys

  2014cites this paper
• Fearless dominance mediates the relationship between the facial width-to-height ratio and willingness to cheat

  2014influential citation
• An Examination of the Associations Between Facial Structure, Aggressive Behavior, and Performance in the 2010 World Cup Association Football Players

  2014cites this paper
• UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Predictably angry-facial cues provide a credible signal of destructive behavior

  2014cites this paper
• Modeling first impressions from highly variable facial images

  2014cites this paper
• Facial Masculinity: How the Choice of Measurement Method Enables to Detect Its Influence on Behaviour

  2014cites this paper
• The facial width-to-height ratio shares stronger links with judgments of aggression than with judgments of trustworthiness.

  2014cites this paper
• In the face of dominance: Self-perceived and other-perceived dominance are positively associated with facial-width-to-height ratio in men

  2014cites this paper
• Taking Control of Aggression: Perceptions of Aggression Suppress the Link between Perceptions of Facial Masculinity and Attractiveness

  2013influential citation
• The role of facial cues to body size on attractiveness and perceived leadership ability

  2013cites this paper
• Reassessing the association between facial structure and baseball performance: a comment on Tsujimura & Banissy (2013)

  2013cites this paper
• Facial morphology predicts male fitness and rank but not survival in Second World War Finnish soldiers

  2013cites this paper
• Enhancing static facial features increases intimidation

  2013cites this paper
• A meta-analysis of the association between male dimorphism and fitness

  year unknowncites this paper