Abstract
Recent studies have demonstrated that judgments of business leaders’ faces predict their organizations’ financial performance. To date, these predictions have been derived exclusively from the impressions of naïve perceivers. Here, we tested how perceivers’ knowledge and experience in business might relate to their judgments of CEOs’ leadership ability from nonverbal facial cues. In Study 1, business students performed similarly to non-business students when rating faces for leadership ability. Business professionals with many years of experience exhibited significantly lower accuracy than professionals without business experience in Study 2, however. Following previous research demonstrating that experience in a particular domain can ironically reduce the accuracy of individuals’ judgments, our findings suggest that perceivers’ experience in executive business management positions may inhibit them from accurately judging leadership ability from nonverbal information. Domain-specific knowledge may therefore impair the accuracy of first impressions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Profits strongly intercorrelated across the three years, all rs ≥ .86, all ps ≤ .01.
References
Adelson, B. (1984). When novices surpass experts: The difficulty of a task may increase with expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10, 483–495.
Antonakis, J., & Dalgas, O. (2009). Predicting elections: Child’s play! Science, 323, 1183.
Berry, D. S. (1990). Taking people at face value—Evidence for the kernel of truth hypothesis. Social Cognition, 8, 343–361.
Blanch-Hartigan, D., Andrzejewski, S. A., & Hill, K. M. (2012). The effectiveness of training to improve person perception accuracy: A meta-analysis. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 34, 483–498.
Castelli, L., Carraro, L., Ghitti, C., & Pastore, M. (2009). The effects of perceived competence and sociability on electoral outcomes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 1152–1155.
Chase, W. G., & Simon, H. A. (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive Psychology, 4, 55–81.
Chi, M. T., Feltovich, P. J., & Glaser, R. (1981). Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cognitive Science, 5, 121–152.
Crow, W. J. (1957). The effect of training upon accuracy and variability in interpersonal perception. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 55, 355–359.
Crowley, R. S., Naus, G. J., Stewart, J, I. I. I., & Friedman, C. P. (2003). Development of visual diagnostic expertise in pathology: An information-processing study. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 10, 39–51.
Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 285–290.
Gerbert, B., Bronstone, A., Wolff, M., Maurer, T., Berger, T., Pantilat, S., & McPhee, S. J. (1998). Improving primary care residents’ proficiency in the diagnosis of skin cancer. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 13, 91–97.
Hall, C. C., Ariss, L., & Todorov, A. (2007). The illusion of knowledge: When more information reduces accuracy and increases confidence. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 103, 277–290.
Harms, P. D., Han, G., & Chen, H. (2012). Recognizing leadership at a distance: A study of leader effectiveness across cultures. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 19, 164–172.
Hauch, V., Sporer, S. L., Michael, S. W., & Meissner, C. A. (2014). Does training improve the detection of deception? A meta-analysis. Communication Research,. doi:10.1177/0093650214534974.
Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 254–284.
Kundel, H. L., Nodine, C. F., Conant, E. F., & Weinstein, S. P. (2007). Holistic component of image perception in mammogram interpretation: Gaze-tracking study. Radiology, 242, 396–402.
Mueller, U., & Mazur, A. (1996). Facial dominance of West Point cadets as a predictor of later military rank. Social Forces, 74, 823–850.
Perrett, D. (2010). In your face: The new science of human attraction. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pillemer, J., Graham, E. R., & Burke, D. M. (2014). The face says it all: CEOs, gender, and predicting corporate performance. Leadership Quarterly, 25, 855–864.
Porter, S., Woodworth, M., & Birt, A. R. (2000). Truth, lies, and videotape: An investigation of the ability of federal parole officers to detect deception. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 643–658.
Re, D. E., & Rule, N. O. (2015). Appearance and physiognomy. In D. Matsumoto, H. Hwang, & M. Frank (Eds.), APA handbook of nonverbal communication. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Re, D. E., & Rule, N. O. (2016). The big man has a big mouth: Mouth width correlates with perceived leadership ability and actual leadership performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 63, 86–92.
Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (1982). A simple, general purpose display of magnitude of experimental effect. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 166–169.
Rule, N. O., & Ambady, N. (2008). The face of success: Inferences from chief executive officers’ appearance predict company profits. Psychological Science, 19, 109–111.
Rule, N. O., & Ambady, N. (2009). She’s got the look: Inferences from female chief executive officers’ faces predict their success. Sex Roles, 61, 644–652.
Rule, N. O., & Ambady, N. (2010). First impressions of the face: Predicting success. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 506–516.
Rule, N. O., & Ambady, N. (2011a). Face and fortune: Inferences of personality from managing partners’ faces predict their law firms’ financial success. The Leadership Quarterly, 22, 690–696.
Rule, N. O., & Ambady, N. (2011b). Judgments of power from college yearbook photos and later career success. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2, 154–158.
Rule, N. O., Ambady, N., Adams, R. B, Jr, Ozono, H., Nakashima, S., Yoshikawa, S., & Watabe, M. (2010). Polling the face: Prediction and consensus across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 1–15.
Rule, N. O., & Tskhay, K. O. (2014). The influence of economic context on the relationship between chief executive officer facial appearance and company profits. The Leadership Quarterly, 25, 846–854.
Schmid Mast, M., Bangerter, A., Bulliard, C., & Aerni, G. (2011). How accurate are recruiters’ first impressions of applicants in employment interviews? International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 19, 198–208.
Spisak, B. R. (2012). The general age of leadership: Older-looking presidential candidates win elections during war. PLoS One, 7, e36945.
Todorov, A., Mandisodza, A. N., Goren, A., & Hall, C. C. (2005). Inferences of competence from faces predict election outcomes. Science, 308, 1623–1626.
Wong, E. M., Ormiston, M. E., & Haselhuhn, M. P. (2011). A face only an investor could love: CEOs’ facial structure predicts their firms’ financial performance. Psychological Science, 22, 1478–1483.
Yates, J. F., McDaniel, L. S., & Brown, E. S. (1991). Probabilistic forecasts of stock prices and earnings: The hazards of nascent expertise. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 49, 60–79.
Zebrowitz, L. A. (1997). Reading faces: Window to the soul?. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Zebrowitz, L. A., Kikuchi, M., & Fellous, J. M. (2010). Facial resemblance to emotions: Group differences, impression effects, and race stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 175–189.
Zebrowitz, L. A., & Montepare, J. M. (2005). Appearance DOES matter. Science, 308, 1565–1566.
Zuckerman, M., Koestner, R., & Colella, M. J. (1985). Learning to detect deception from three communication channels. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 9, 188–194.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Re, D.E., Rule, N.O. Making a (False) Impression: The Role of Business Experience in First Impressions of CEO Leadership Ability. J Nonverbal Behav 40, 235–245 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-016-0231-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-016-0231-2