Average-looking people are more trustworthy

New York, Dec 17: People may not find average-looking faces most attractive but they are considered to be the most trustworthy, researchers say. During an experiment, they found that typically average-looking faces are considered more trustworthy than attractive ones. "Face typicality likely indicates familiarity and cultural affiliation. These findings have important implications for understanding social perception, including cross-cultural perceptions and interactions," explained lead researcher Carmel Sofer from Princeton University in New Jersey and Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. The researchers only included female participants so as to eliminate potential cross-gender differences in how people perceive and evaluate faces. The study was published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.