[Applause]
face the final frontier
throughout history researchers from all
disciplines have looked into human
interaction from the ground up literally
from how we walk how we talk to how we
power pose as we’ve been able to narrow
or focus within human interaction people
from various disciplines have looked
into what features we find attractive
from an evolutionary perspective they’ve
looked into how we remember faces and
but I wanted to look into something even
further within the face the way our
perceptions of facial features go into
affecting our social interaction and
this has been studied extensively
already a psychological phenomenon known
as the halo effect explains why pretty
people were treated better in high
school the halo effect basically says
that people who are attractive are given
the benefit of doubt of the doubt when
it comes to other characteristics such
as intelligence or conscientiousness
people think that attractive people
already have these traits even if
nothing has really been done to show
that they possess these traits and this
is so pervasive that legislators in
several states have actually set up
protections for employees in the
workplace being unattractive can
actually cost you up to 9% of your
salary
whereas being attractive can earn you a
bonus of up to 6% and that’s without
even factoring in the fact that being
attractive makes you more likely to get
the job in the first place so it’s clear
that your face really has more than
meets the eye but it goes even farther
than that bias exists regarding racially
characteristic facial features as well
researchers at Tufts University used
these images to explore the relationship
between status cues and the way we
perceive faces using racially ambiguous
faces such as these – which don’t have
any racially characteristic features
they wanted to explore how status cues
such as high or low class attire can
affect the way that people perceive
faces participants were asked when shown
these faces to categorize them as either
black or white
now as I said earlier they don’t have
any racially characteristic facial
features so they were going entirely
based off status cues and the results
couldn’t have been clearer
high-class attire a suit would have
listed a categorization of white whereas
low-class attire a janitorial outfit
would elicit a assignment of black the
researchers went one step further as
well they used mouse tracking software
to see if there were any other implicit
biases that weren’t so on the surface
when shown an image like this using that
mouse tracking software it was shown
that participants went to click on white
but ultimately selected black the same
thing happened in Reverse when shown a
white face with low class attire the
participants went to select black and
then ultimately selected white this
shows that there’s a competition between
these different biases that you have a
bunch of different input coming in and
you’re not sure exactly which is the
most important and they all influenced
each other but this research fell a bit
short for me while they looked into the
way your status cues such as the things
that you’re wearing can affect how you
perceive racially ambiguous features
they did not look into how racially
characteristic features paired with skin
color can affect these perceptions for
example when shown an image like this if
the skin had been white even though
there are racially characteristic
features would there have been some sort
of difference in the results that’s what
I set out to find out so I took these
pictures of six white and five black
models and I meant believed them in
Photoshop starting with the original
photo
I would then create two versions of the
photo so this is the original photo the
first version I created was one with
black characteristic features which were
determined by geneticists to include a
wider nose and fuller lips and then I
created another version of the photo
which had white characteristic features
such as a narrow nose and less full lips
I’ll just I know people like to look at
these photos because they’re a little
weird too to see but I’ll just leave
that up for a sec
now I did the same thing for each model
from the side as well so starting with a
profile shot I then I manipulated it to
have black characteristic features which
is a flat nose bridge and more
protruding lips and a white phenotypic
features which include a more narrow and
defined nose bridge as well as less
protruding lips then I created two
surveys I put the photographs
side-by-side and I asked either which
face do you think is more attractive or
which person do you believe has a higher
income now each survey had a different
participant pool and in each participant
pool was around 130 Monroe Community
College students from upstate New York
I collected demographic information
based on their age race and gender and
then I scored them based on 22 on how
many times they selected the white
facial features as either being
perceived as more attractive or being
perceived as having a higher income now
the results were almost identical for
both surveys people selected the white
facial features three times as
frequently as the white facial features
and everything else was controlled for
it was the same model same skin tone the
only thing that was different was these
racially characteristic facial features
so it’s clear that a bias exists here
there is a relationship between racially
characteristic features and perceived
income and attractiveness what are some
explanations for this what could be the
cause I believe that it is an
over-representation of white facial
features and media white facial features
are just seen more and that could affect
a participants choice if they’re only
seeing white facial features and that’s
what they’re being shown over and over
is the most attractive option then that
will affect their choice and also in
successful and popular women of color in
the media there is a tendency to favor
white facial features now that you’re
looking for it look at these photographs
and imagine if any of them would look
out of place if their skin was white
Beyonce with a slender nose and
not very protruding lips or Halle Berry
also with the slender nose and dainty
lips supermodels like Tyra Banks not
only have the slender nose but they’re
also styled frequently in wigs and
extensions that make them appear even
whiter and this led to an unexpected
very surprising result of my research
although participants selected the white
facial features overall for both graces
of models they were far more likely to
choose two white facial features for
white models and this shows that
participants were much more comfortable
seeing white features on a black model
than black features on a white model
again I believe that this is a result of
the over representation of white facial
features in media and the fact that
there are many successful beautiful
popular actresses musicians of color
that are not being very representative
of the racially characteristic features
within their ethnic group so we’ve
uncovered this bias but what can we do
the first step is starting a
conversation having a paradigm shift
once you can start to understand the way
that you’re perceiving facial features
it’s much easier to change the way that
you’re seeing them movies like Black
Panther that have a diverse cast of
black people show diversity within a
race versus between races and it shows
that black people do not need to look a
certain way there’s a spectrum just like
for any race instead of the typical show
which has a majority of white cast and a
token minority it shows like Luke Cage
show that there is diversity within
after the group they can stay true to
the community that they represent but
obviously we can’t all make movies and
create just you know create
representation for ourselves out there
in the media so what can we do in
examining problematic trends in our
current society such as contouring
trends which really focus on minimizing
or even eliminating certain ethnically
characteristic features once you start
to notice and recognize these things
it’s a lot easier to scale back and
recognize the societal and
that are you know creating these beauty
standards only when we start to see the
true faces of America only when we see
beauty beyond color well America really
start to look prettier thank you very
much [Applause]
face the final frontier
throughout history researchers from all
disciplines have looked into human
interaction from the ground up literally
from how we walk how we talk to how we
power pose as we’ve been able to narrow
or focus within human interaction people
from various disciplines have looked
into what features we find attractive
from an evolutionary perspective they’ve
looked into how we remember faces and
but I wanted to look into something even
further within the face the way our
perceptions of facial features go into
affecting our social interaction and
this has been studied extensively
already a psychological phenomenon known
as the halo effect explains why pretty
people were treated better in high
school the halo effect basically says
that people who are attractive are given
the benefit of doubt of the doubt when
it comes to other characteristics such
as intelligence or conscientiousness
people think that attractive people
already have these traits even if
nothing has really been done to show
that they possess these traits and this
is so pervasive that legislators in
several states have actually set up
protections for employees in the
workplace being unattractive can
actually cost you up to 9% of your
salary
whereas being attractive can earn you a
bonus of up to 6% and that’s without
even factoring in the fact that being
attractive makes you more likely to get
the job in the first place so it’s clear
that your face really has more than
meets the eye but it goes even farther
than that bias exists regarding racially
characteristic facial features as well
researchers at Tufts University used
these images to explore the relationship
between status cues and the way we
perceive faces using racially ambiguous
faces such as these – which don’t have
any racially characteristic features
they wanted to explore how status cues
such as high or low class attire can
affect the way that people perceive
faces participants were asked when shown
these faces to categorize them as either
black or white
now as I said earlier they don’t have
any racially characteristic facial
features so they were going entirely
based off status cues and the results
couldn’t have been clearer
high-class attire a suit would have
listed a categorization of white whereas
low-class attire a janitorial outfit
would elicit a assignment of black the
researchers went one step further as
well they used mouse tracking software
to see if there were any other implicit
biases that weren’t so on the surface
when shown an image like this using that
mouse tracking software it was shown
that participants went to click on white
but ultimately selected black the same
thing happened in Reverse when shown a
white face with low class attire the
participants went to select black and
then ultimately selected white this
shows that there’s a competition between
these different biases that you have a
bunch of different input coming in and
you’re not sure exactly which is the
most important and they all influenced
each other but this research fell a bit
short for me while they looked into the
way your status cues such as the things
that you’re wearing can affect how you
perceive racially ambiguous features
they did not look into how racially
characteristic features paired with skin
color can affect these perceptions for
example when shown an image like this if
the skin had been white even though
there are racially characteristic
features would there have been some sort
of difference in the results that’s what
I set out to find out so I took these
pictures of six white and five black
models and I meant believed them in
Photoshop starting with the original
photo
I would then create two versions of the
photo so this is the original photo the
first version I created was one with
black characteristic features which were
determined by geneticists to include a
wider nose and fuller lips and then I
created another version of the photo
which had white characteristic features
such as a narrow nose and less full lips
I’ll just I know people like to look at
these photos because they’re a little
weird too to see but I’ll just leave
that up for a sec
now I did the same thing for each model
from the side as well so starting with a
profile shot I then I manipulated it to
have black characteristic features which
is a flat nose bridge and more
protruding lips and a white phenotypic
features which include a more narrow and
defined nose bridge as well as less
protruding lips then I created two
surveys I put the photographs
side-by-side and I asked either which
face do you think is more attractive or
which person do you believe has a higher
income now each survey had a different
participant pool and in each participant
pool was around 130 Monroe Community
College students from upstate New York
I collected demographic information
based on their age race and gender and
then I scored them based on 22 on how
many times they selected the white
facial features as either being
perceived as more attractive or being
perceived as having a higher income now
the results were almost identical for
both surveys people selected the white
facial features three times as
frequently as the white facial features
and everything else was controlled for
it was the same model same skin tone the
only thing that was different was these
racially characteristic facial features
so it’s clear that a bias exists here
there is a relationship between racially
characteristic features and perceived
income and attractiveness what are some
explanations for this what could be the
cause I believe that it is an
over-representation of white facial
features and media white facial features
are just seen more and that could affect
a participants choice if they’re only
seeing white facial features and that’s
what they’re being shown over and over
is the most attractive option then that
will affect their choice and also in
successful and popular women of color in
the media there is a tendency to favor
white facial features now that you’re
looking for it look at these photographs
and imagine if any of them would look
out of place if their skin was white
Beyonce with a slender nose and
not very protruding lips or Halle Berry
also with the slender nose and dainty
lips supermodels like Tyra Banks not
only have the slender nose but they’re
also styled frequently in wigs and
extensions that make them appear even
whiter and this led to an unexpected
very surprising result of my research
although participants selected the white
facial features overall for both graces
of models they were far more likely to
choose two white facial features for
white models and this shows that
participants were much more comfortable
seeing white features on a black model
than black features on a white model
again I believe that this is a result of
the over representation of white facial
features in media and the fact that
there are many successful beautiful
popular actresses musicians of color
that are not being very representative
of the racially characteristic features
within their ethnic group so we’ve
uncovered this bias but what can we do
the first step is starting a
conversation having a paradigm shift
once you can start to understand the way
that you’re perceiving facial features
it’s much easier to change the way that
you’re seeing them movies like Black
Panther that have a diverse cast of
black people show diversity within a
race versus between races and it shows
that black people do not need to look a
certain way there’s a spectrum just like
for any race instead of the typical show
which has a majority of white cast and a
token minority it shows like Luke Cage
show that there is diversity within
after the group they can stay true to
the community that they represent but
obviously we can’t all make movies and
create just you know create
representation for ourselves out there
in the media so what can we do in
examining problematic trends in our
current society such as contouring
trends which really focus on minimizing
or even eliminating certain ethnically
characteristic features once you start
to notice and recognize these things
it’s a lot easier to scale back and
recognize the societal and
that are you know creating these beauty
standards only when we start to see the
true faces of America only when we see
beauty beyond color well America really
start to look prettier thank you very
much [Applause]
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