Scientists Says People With Wide Faces Are More Likely To Be Aggressive

Men and women with wide faces tend to be more aggressive, dominant and angry, according to British research

Those with broad features - like Wayne Rooney, Sylvester Stallone or Sarah Palin - are more likely to have bad tempers and display bouts of verbal or physical aggression.

Psychologists think the trait is linked to the evolutionary benefit of having thick cheekbones

Those who had more robust facial bones could be more aggressive, because they could better withstand a punch, the scientists suggest.

Lead researcher Dr Carmen Lefevre of Leeds University said: 'Those with a higher facial width-to-height ratio are more likely to be more aggressive than those with lower facial width-to-height ratio.

'We are not saying that every single person with wider faces will be more aggressive, but if you take a sample of the two groups, those with wider faces will be slightly more aggressive.'

The psychologist, whose work is published by the Royal Society journal Biology Letters today, said testosterone may be a factor.

'Testosterone tends to make faces wider and testosterone is also linked to aggression,' she said.

'We also speculate that there might be an evolutionary link. One speculation is that if someone with a wider face gets punched they won't be damaged as much. They can afford to be more aggressive.'

Dr Lefevre and colleagues at Bristol University, Bath Spa University and Brunel University studied 49 women and 54 men aged 18 to 30.

They measured the breadth from cheek to cheek and the vertical gap between their upper lip and highest point of their eyelids.

They then asked them a series of questions to assess their dominance, aggression, anger and hostility.

The psychologists found that those participants with broader features proportionate to the height of their faces were more likely to be aggressive, have bad tempers and be more dominant.

And they found that the tendencies applied to both men and women.

Not all scientists agree with the findings however.

A separate piece of research published yesterday by American researchers, found that facial features trigger a 'face-ist' response which influence the way personalities are perceived by others.

But the US team, whose work was published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, said the perceptions are misleading and do not reflect real personality traits.

Christopher Olivola of Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania said: 'Although we would like to think our judgments and choices are rational, impartial, consistent, and solely based on relevant information, the truth is that they are often biased by superficial and irrelevant factors.

'This is a troubling human tendency that needs to be corrected, or at least mitigated, because faces are not valid predictors of a person's traits.

 Source-Dailymail