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Criminal Faces
Mar. 14th, 2011 04:58 pmI just read an article titled "THE ACCURACY OF INFERENCES ABOUT CRIMINALITY BASED ON FACIAL APPEARANCE." It's from the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology. The authors found that, in general, we can tell who is a criminal just by looking a person. Even without additional cues, just by looking a person's face, we can tell. Pretty astounding, don't you think?
It is not female intuition. Quite the opposite, sadly. The findings are the same for men and women, except for one massive anomaly: women rated the convicted rapists significantly less likely than other criminal types to have committed rape. (Makes sense because, presumably, a convicted rapist is someone who can fake it enough to get into a position of access to victims. Guys who look like rapists wouldn't get that far. These are pictures of convicted rapists only.)
I had to pass on the link because, at the end of the article (Appendix A), the authors provide the test they used. There are 32 pictures of Caucasian men, all in their 20s, from the neck up with no clothing shown, no visible tattoos or piercings, no facial hair except shadows, images cropped and everything made as plain as possible. Grab a piece of paper and see if you can identify which among them are the:
*No, I am not a grifter. Close. I'm a litigator. LOL.
P.S. At some point I am going to figure out the nuances of posting on DW again, but for now I've resumed cross-posting at LJ and allowing comments there. I miss interacting with my internet friends!
It is not female intuition. Quite the opposite, sadly. The findings are the same for men and women, except for one massive anomaly: women rated the convicted rapists significantly less likely than other criminal types to have committed rape. (Makes sense because, presumably, a convicted rapist is someone who can fake it enough to get into a position of access to victims. Guys who look like rapists wouldn't get that far. These are pictures of convicted rapists only.)
I had to pass on the link because, at the end of the article (Appendix A), the authors provide the test they used. There are 32 pictures of Caucasian men, all in their 20s, from the neck up with no clothing shown, no visible tattoos or piercings, no facial hair except shadows, images cropped and everything made as plain as possible. Grab a piece of paper and see if you can identify which among them are the:
- 16 convicted criminals, especially the 4 convicted rapists
- 16 normal college students, nice guys who are probably debating the wisdom of allowing their pictures to be used in this study
*No, I am not a grifter. Close. I'm a litigator. LOL.
P.S. At some point I am going to figure out the nuances of posting on DW again, but for now I've resumed cross-posting at LJ and allowing comments there. I miss interacting with my internet friends!
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