Facial Anthropometry and Self-expressed Behaviours: A Systematic Review
Correspondence Address :
Dr. Anand Bihari,
Statistician cum Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine MVASMC, Basti-272124, Uttar Pradesh, India.
E-mail: anandbhu05@gmail.com
Introduction: Facial anthropometry is a systematic technique based on a series of measurements and proportions of the face. It is useful for identifying a person’s self-expressed behaviours (physiognomic evaluation). Previous research on humans and non human primates has revealed an association between the facial Width-to-Height Ratio (fWHR) and various traits, including achievement drive, aggression, unethical behaviour and dominance. Additionally, facial symmetry has been significantly associated with the Big Five personality factors, which encompass traits such as averageness, truthfulness, judgment and youthfulness.
Aim: To assess the association of facial measurements with self-expressed behaviours and to determine how strongly these behaviours correlate with facial measurements.
Materials and Methods: A PubMed database search was performed using the following keywords: Behaviour* OR Threat* OR Aggress* OR trait* OR Socia* AND Personality Mesh term and fWHR OR Facial* AND Anthropometry Mesh term. The eligibility criteria for including studies were: selection of primary data, English language and facial anthropometric measurements (fWHR, bizygomatic width, forehead length, forehead width, forehead slant, facial index and upper facial index) related to self-expressed or actual behaviour in humans and monkeys. After applying the eligibility criteria, 340 articles published between 2004 and 2022 were identified, of which 17 articles/studies were found relevant for the results analysis. The identified titles and abstracts were screened independently by two authors and studies that mentioned facial anthropometry in relation to self-expressed behaviour or personality in humans and monkeys were included.
Results: This review describes the statistical results and conclusions of 17 studies regarding different behaviours and their relation to facial anthropometry. A meta-analysis of four studies involving a total of 236 subjects was conducted, with weighted assignments to each study ranging from 8.4 to 25.8%. The correlation coefficients from individual studies ranged between 0.38 and 0.53, except for one study, which showed a negative correlation of -0.40. The overall coefficient across all studies was r=0.37, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) (0.27, 0.47), p <0.01, indicating a moderate positive correlation.
Conclusion: The data from various populations in present review support the hypothesis that facial structures are important biological markers for assessing behaviours or personality traits. The findings of present review provide new insights for future research in the fields of behavioural medicine and computational face recognition.
Bizygomatic width, Face recognition, Facial index, Facial width to height ratio, Personality
DOI: 10.7860/JCDR/2025/75691.20506
Date of Submission: Sep 18, 2024
Date of Peer Review: Oct 09, 2024
Date of Acceptance: Dec 17, 2024
Date of Publishing: Jan 01, 2025
AUTHOR DECLARATION:
• Financial or Other Competing Interests: None
• Was Ethics Committee Approval obtained for this study? No
• Was informed consent obtained from the subjects involved in the study? No
• For any images presented appropriate consent has been obtained from the subjects. NA
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ETYMOLOGY: Author Origin
EMENDATIONS: 9
- Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science, thomsonreuters)
- Index Copernicus ICV 2017: 134.54
- Academic Search Complete Database
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
- Embase
- EBSCOhost
- Google Scholar
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