Facial width-to-height ratio differs by social rank across organizations, countries, and value systems

PLoS One. 2017 Nov 9;12(11):e0187957. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0187957. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Facial Width-to-Height Ratio (fWHR) has been linked with dominant and aggressive behavior in human males. We show here that on portrait photographs published online, chief executive officers (CEOs) of companies listed in the Dow Jones stock market index and the Deutscher Aktienindex have a higher-than-normal fWHR, which also correlates positively with their company's donations to charitable causes and environmental awareness. Furthermore, we show that leaders of the world's most influential non-governmental organizations and even the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, the popes, have higher fWHR compared to controls on public portraits, suggesting that the relationship between displayed fWHR and leadership is not limited to profit-seeking organizations. The data speak against the simplistic view that wider-faced men achieve higher social status through antisocial tendencies and overt aggression, or the mere signaling of such dispositions. Instead they suggest that high fWHR is linked with high social rank in a more subtle fashion in both competitive as well as prosocially oriented settings.

MeSH terms

  • Achievement
  • Anthropometry
  • Face / anatomy & histology*
  • Hierarchy, Social*
  • Humans
  • Leadership
  • Male
  • Organizations, Nonprofit
  • Portraits as Topic

Grants and funding

All authors have been funded by Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University Frankfurt at the time the study was performed; KN additionally received a scholarship from the Research Foundation Flanders (Belgium) at the time of her contribution. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.