Master's Thesis – The Effects of Facial Sexual Dimorphism on Leadership Aptitude Perception

ERRATUM: In the analyses, correlations between leadership attributes across morphs were computed using morph-level means for males and females. Subsequent review indicates this approach likely inflates correlations because participant-level variation was averaged out. This article represents the Master's Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Economics, University of Applied Sciences Worms, in the program Global Trade Management M.A. Classic. Facial features play an important role in social perception and leadership evaluations. This study examined the effects of facial sexual dimorphism on the perceived aptitude for leadership roles in males. A total of 82 participants, a split of 51 male to 31 female, rated eight facial stimuli holistically morphed by digital manipulation to vary in sexual dimorphism. Increases in both androgenization and estrogenization, from a base image designed as to maintain facial averageness, holistically morphed four faces in each direction of hormonal modulation. Eight additional facial morphs focusing on a singular feature pertaining to dimorphic skull shape, eyes, lips, and the nose, while using the base picture for maintaining facial averageness, were created to reveal the influence of individual facial features on leadership aptitude perceptions. The results revealed that masculine facial traits were positively associated with perceptions of competence, conscientiousness, extroversion, intelligence, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and being strategic. Female facial traits were more closely linked to traits labeled abstract, agreeable, altruistic, and neuroticism. Interestingly, male androgynous faces, especially depicting the eyes and dimorphic skull shape, were rated highest overall for leadership aptitude, suggesting that a balance between masculine and feminine facial traits may align most closely with leadership ideals in case of male ratings. Female participants rated androgenized faces as most suitable for leadership, and estrogenized faces as least suitable. These results support and extend existing theories on facial perception, gender stereotypes, and leadership traits. The findings suggest that leadership evaluations are shaped not only by inherent biases favoring facial masculinity, but also underscores the importance of balancing trait attributions in leadership perception models to contribute to an understanding on how facial traits influence leadership perceptions, with implications for bias in leadership selection.This work explores facial cues in leadership perception and reports the results of the analyses conducted.