Targets' facial width-to-height ratio biases pain judgments

The accurate perception of others' pain is important for both perceivers and targets. Yet, like other person perception judgments, pain judgments are prone to biases. Although past work has begun detailing characteristics of targets that can bias pain judgments (e.g., race, gender), the current work examines a novel source of bias inherent to all targets: structural characteristics of the human face. Specifically, we present four studies demonstrating that facial width-to-height ratio, a stable feature of all faces, biases pain judgments. Compared to those with low facial width-to-height ratio, individuals with high facial width-to-height ratio are perceived as experiencing less pain in otherwise identical situations (Studies 1, 2, & 3), and as needing less pain medication to salve their injuries (Study 4). This process was observed for White but not Black targets (Study 2), and manipulations of facial width-to-height ratio affected pain perceptions even when target identity was held constant (Study 4). Together, these findings implicate face structure in judgments of others' pain.