Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Appearance is often the first impression a person leaves when meeting new people. Interestingly, the face also plays an important role in giving the impression of being rich or poor. This has been proven in a study conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto, Canada.

In essence, the study published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2018 it was found that the faces of rich people tend to be relaxed and not stressed.

“The relationship between wealth and social class has been widely discussed in previous research. However, this study finds that differences in a person’s wealth can be reflected in each person’s face,” said R-Thora Bjorsdottir, researcher of the study, as reported by CNBC Make It, quoted Friday (3 /11/2023).

According to the research, in general people who have a lot of money tend to be happier and less anxious compared to people who struggle to meet basic living needs.

In this study, the researchers chose black and white photo subjects with neutral expressions and did not use any accessories, consisting of 80 photos of men and 80 photos of women. 50 percent of the people in the photo are figures with upper class status, while the other 50 percent are working class.

These photos are then shown to other people. They were asked to guess the social class of each person. As a result, as many as 68 percent answered correctly. “When asked how, they don’t know. They don’t realize how they guessed it correctly,” Bjornsdottir said.

The researchers then conducted further studies by enlarging facial features. As a result, subjects were still able to guess correctly when they only saw the eyes and mouth.

The researchers concluded this likely happened because emotional patterns can be seen on a person’s face over time. Contraction of certain muscles can cause changes in facial structure that others can see.

“Over time, your face permanently reflects and expresses your experiences. Even when we think we are not expressing something, the emotional expression is still there,” said another researcher, Nicholas O. Rule.

“Facial-based perceptions of social class may have important downstream consequences. People talk about cycles of poverty and this could potentially be one of the causes,” Rule added.

However, the fact that most people can guess a person’s social status just from their face can have negative consequences, especially regarding bias and judgment. For example, people who have a ‘rich face’ often get better treatment from people.

“Face-based perceptions of social class may have important consequences… We know there is something called the cycle of poverty and this is potentially one of the contributors,” Rule said.

Face can influence success

The researchers also tried to predict how impressions of rich or poor that emerge from faces play out in real-world social life. They asked students to look at a number of photos, then guess which of them was more likely to get a job as an accountant. More often, they guess that people who will become accountants will be those from the upper class. This shows that judgments about rich or poor can perpetuate social bias.

“Ultimately perceptions of social class based on faces can have serious consequences,” they concluded.

“We’re talking about cycles of poverty,” Rule said, “and this is potentially one of the causes of cycles of poverty.”

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(hsy/hsy)