Do You Have a Rich or Poor Face? New Study Links Looks to Wealth

We're often told that hard work will pay off and that our financial success is directly tied to how much we push ourselves to make money. It turns out there might be another factor at play determining just how rich or poor we are: our faces. 

A new study published in the APA Journal of Experimental Psychology explored just how facial features create certain perceptions of social class standing and how they can play a role in perpetuating stereotypes. Researchers at the University of Glasgow were curious about what makes someone appear to be rich or poor and how these appearances are connected to other snap judgments we make about competence, warmth, dominance, and trustworthiness. 

The scientists—who studied caucasian participants from Western countries—found that a combination of facial features can signal to our brains whether someone might be of a higher social standing or not. They found "poor" faces to be wider, shorter, and flatter with downturned mouths; these features were also associated with incompetence, untrustworthiness, and cold exteriors. By contrast, "rich" faces were narrower and longer with upturned mouths, which in turn corresponded to perceptions of competence, trustworthiness, and warmth. 

"People who are perceived to be of high or low social class standing are also often judged as having advantageous or unfavorable traits, respectively," study author Dr. R. Thora Bjornsdottir said in a statement. "Such judgements are formed even just from facial appearance, and this can have substantial downstream consequences, including disadvantaging those who are perceived to be of lower social class standing."

"In our study, by revealing the facial features that underlie these subjective judgements, we provide new insights into what makes someone look rich or poor and show how these judgements relate to positive and negative stereotypes (such as competence vs. incompetence)," Bjornsdottir continued. "The results suggest that social class stereotypes explain the link between facial appearance and judgements of individuals’ social class standing. This highlights that the stereotypes we hold are consequential for how we perceive others—they bias our perceptions. Our impressions of other people can then lead to particular advantages or disadvantages for them."

In conducting the study, the scientists wanted to find a connection between particular facial features and how they affect our perception of the person behind them. 

"Our research demonstrates how specific facial attributes play a pivotal role in connecting social class perceptions with related stereotypes," co-author Prof. Rachael E. Jack said. "These findings are not only valuable for advancing our understanding of central social perception theories, but could also help with future interventions designed to interrupt biased perceptions."

Of course, the more money you have, the more options you have to modify your face to have more "rich" features.