Social Psychology: Facial Features

1. How are adults with baby-faced facial features perceived and treated differently than adults with mature facial features? What are two explanations for these effects?
Mature adult faces are said to have features like small foreheads, angular chins, wrinkled skin, and smaller eyes (Kassin et al, 2010). On the contrary, baby-faced features include larger foreheads and eyes, rounded chins and cheeks, as well as smooth skin. We are naturally programmed to recognize these features. These recognitions pose the purpose of our natural instincts for us to identify infants and help to nurture them. However, our natural biases cause us to overgeneralize this features when presented with them. Adults who possess the baby-faced features are often perceived to have traits that are childlike (Zebrowitz, & Montepare, 2008).Whereas, adults with mature features is seen to have traits of competence and dominance.
First, our natural survival instincts cause us to make judgments about the security of people, places, and things. Our judgments allow us to activate biases used to protect us from harmful situations. However, sometimes these judgments and generalizations can cause us to relate items that are not similar to each other because of similar features. For instance, people tend to read traits from another person’s facial features like anger and happiness (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2010). This allows people to determine whether another person is safe to approach or may need to be avoided. The generalizations we create are examples of our cognitive mechanisms of stimulus generalizations (Zebrowitz & Montepare, 2008). These generalizations are necessary for our adaptive behavior and survival.
Secondly, overgeneralizations can cause errors in our r...

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...strengthens stereotypes of women being dainty creatures who are supposed to look and act certain ways. Also, in video games, men are seen in roles of the shooters or rescuers of women. This instills an idea that men are supposed to be strong and dominant. These images are so abundant that people may be unaware of what they are learning from these images. Continuously people are flooded with images, words, and depictions of how men and women are supposed to look and behave. This will continue to strengthen and maintain gender stereotypes.

References
Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2010). Social psychology with study guide. (8th ed.). Mason: Cengage Learning.
Zebrowitz, L. A., & Montepare, J. M. (2008). Social psychological face perception: Why appearance matters. Social & Personality Psychology Compass. 2(3). 1497-1517. doi:10.111/j.1751-9004.2008.00109.x.