TY - JOUR
T1 - Face value
T2 - Amygdala response reflects the validity of first impressions
AU - Rule, Nicholas O.
AU - Moran, Joseph M.
AU - Freeman, Jonathan B.
AU - Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan
AU - Gabrieli, John D.E.
AU - Ambady, Nalini
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by a National Science Foundation grant (BCS-0435547) to NA and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to NOR. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nicholas O. Rule, University of Toronto Psychology Department, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, [email protected] .
PY - 2011/1/1
Y1 - 2011/1/1
N2 - The human amygdala responds to first impressions of people as judged from their faces, such as normative judgments about the trustworthiness of strangers. It is unknown, however, whether amygdala responses to first impressions can be validated by objective criteria. Here, we examined amygdala responses to faces of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) where real-world outcomes could be measured objectively by the amounts of profits made by each CEO's company. During fMRI scanning, participants made incidental judgments about the symmetry of each CEO's face. After scanning, participants rated each CEO's face on leadership ability. Parametric analyses showed that greater left amygdala response to the CEOs' faces was associated with higher post-scan ratings of the CEOs' leadership ability. In addition, greater left amygdala response was also associated with greater profits made by the CEOs' companies and this relationship was statistically mediated by external raters' perceptions of arousal. Thus, amygdala response reflected both subjective judgments and objective measures of leadership ability based on first impressions.
AB - The human amygdala responds to first impressions of people as judged from their faces, such as normative judgments about the trustworthiness of strangers. It is unknown, however, whether amygdala responses to first impressions can be validated by objective criteria. Here, we examined amygdala responses to faces of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) where real-world outcomes could be measured objectively by the amounts of profits made by each CEO's company. During fMRI scanning, participants made incidental judgments about the symmetry of each CEO's face. After scanning, participants rated each CEO's face on leadership ability. Parametric analyses showed that greater left amygdala response to the CEOs' faces was associated with higher post-scan ratings of the CEOs' leadership ability. In addition, greater left amygdala response was also associated with greater profits made by the CEOs' companies and this relationship was statistically mediated by external raters' perceptions of arousal. Thus, amygdala response reflected both subjective judgments and objective measures of leadership ability based on first impressions.
KW - Amygdala
KW - Face perception
KW - First impressions
KW - Leadership
KW - Nonverbal behavior
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.07.007
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.07.007
M3 - Article
C2 - 20633663
AN - SCOPUS:77957970105
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 54
SP - 734
EP - 741
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
IS - 1
ER -