Cross-cultural impressions of leaders’ faces: Consensus and predictive validity

Across cultures, people tend to show high agreement in their impressions of others. But do these impressions predict external outcomes? Here we tested the predictive validity of trait judgments of the faces of Japanese and American targets, as rated by Japanese and American perceivers. Participants rated the faces of Japanese and American Chief Executive Officers of major companies. These judgments showed high agreement within and across cultures. In addition, judgments of power-related traits predicted the company profits of American CEOs, whereas judgments of warmth-related traits did not. However, neither power nor warmth predicted the company profits of Japanese CEOs, implicating longstanding cultural differences in company organization and business practices in the US versus Japan. Together, these data show both cross-cultural agreement between perceivers and targets but also cross-cultural differences in the relevance or application of particular trait information based on facial judgments.

► American and Japanese participants show high consensus in rating traits from faces. ► Ratings of US Chief Executive Officers’ faces predict their companies’ profits. ► Ratings of Japanese Chief Executives’ faces do not predict company performance. ► Same-culture and other-culture judgments predict outcomes equally well. ► Differences in prediction are related to differences in cultural values.