The Influence of Hair and Faces on Social Judgments of Power and Warmth

Abstract We explored how faces and hair influence social judgments of power and warmth by altering 40 photos to display only hair (“Hair-only”), only face (“Face-only”), or both (“Whole Picture”). Across conditions, participants’ ( N = 195) Face-only judgments strongly correlated with Whole Picture judgments, even when controlling for hair judgments. Although Hair-only judgments did not significantly predict warmth, they were a strong predictor of Whole Picture judgments of power ( r = .65, p < .001), even when controlling for Face-Only judgments ( β = .56, p < .001). The impact of hair judgments on overall power judgments was greater for male than female targets and judges, suggesting that hair plays a prominent role in males’ perceptions of power and how males are judged with respect to power. In contrast, face rating predominately explained warmth judgments (R 2 = 0.84, p < .001), and adding hair ratings did not contribute to additional variance (ΔR 2 < 0.01, p = .68). These findings align with theories of impression formation, which propose that warmth judgments rely on involuntary facial cues, while power judgments incorporate controllable appearance features such as hair.