Eye Colour and Trustworthiness

Does the colour of your eyes indicate how trustworthy you are? Research by Kleisner et al (2013) appears to suggest that it does. Some aspects of behaviour and eye colour have been researched previously. For instance, Rosenberg & Kagan (1989) found that blue-eyed infants were more inhibited, shy and timid than brown-eyed infants. Coplan et al (1998) found that boys with blue eyes were socially warier than boys with brown eyes, although no such differences were found between blue- and brown-eyed girls. In the latest experiment, 238 participants were shown photographs of 40 males and 40 females, and rated them for trustworthiness on a scale of one to ten. In order to check if eye colour was really the relevant factor, the irises were then re-coloured using Photoshop. These re-coloured photos were then assessed for trustworthiness by a second group of 106 participants. They found that brown-eyed faces were perceived as more trustworthy than the blue-eyed ones. For male faces, the eye colour of those rating the photos had no effect. But for female faces, those with blue eyes received lower ratings from those with brown eyes than with blue eyes. However, all those doing the rating, irrespective of their own eye colour, perceived brown-eyed faces as more trustworthy than blue-eyed ones. But when the eye colours were digitally changed, there was no change in perceived trustworthiness, showing that it wasn’t actually eye colour that was significant. So what was going on? It turns out that men with a larger mouth, a broader chin, a bigger nose and more prominent eyebrows positioned closer to each other were rated more trustworthy. And brown-eyed men are more likely to have these characteristics. There was a similar but insignificant effect for women, possibly because of less variation in female face shape. As the Eagles put it, “You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes”. David Donner