Poverty stigma: a person's welfare status can be accurately estimated by the face

Neither clothing nor high-profile titles can mask poverty. This is shown by the results of a very curious psychological experiment that set University of Toronto staff Nicholas Rule and Thor Bornsdottir. It is reported by the Dauphinois channel.

The test students were divided into two groups based on family income. The first included those whose families had annual incomes below $ 60,000. The second included wealthier students whose family income exceeded $ 100,000 per year. They were asked to be photographed with a neutral, emotionless expression. The third group of students, not familiar with the first two, were given a look at the photographs and asked to determine who belonged to the rich and who belonged to the poor segment of society. Your social status is determined by a group of 43 muscles concentrated in a very small area of the face. At the same time, his expression should be neutral, since vivid emotions, such as joy or anger, hide life experience. Hence the conclusion: people smile when communicating with strangers or, on the contrary, behave aggressively, including in order to hide their social status, which is masked by emotions.

It is life experience that is reflected on the "neutral" face and allows you to correctly classify a person as poor or rich, scientists say.

The difference is small, but enough to trigger a "social radar" in your brain - a group of neurons responsible for recognizing facial expressions. And it works. Moreover, the older a person is, the deeper poverty is "imprinted" in his face. And if this technique does not work on children, then already on the faces of 18-22-year-olds who took part in the experiment, life experience is reflected in addition to their desire.

“Of course, everything in this news is fine, modern scientists have discovered physiognomy for themselves. And then they still wonder why the Chinese do not consider them as people, and why should they not consider them as such if the first mentions of physiognomy are contained in the treatise Zuochzhuan (4th century BC)", - the channel experts comment on the news.

Analyst Dmitry Prokofiev adds:

“This, by the way, explains why women immediately cut off“ inappropriate acquaintances ”, and good face controllers and security guards will not allow you to be where you are not supposed to. No "Talented Mr. Ripley" could deceive people from high society, posing as a rich heir - they would immediately understand that something was wrong with their new acquaintance.

No external attributes can fool the social radar in our head. For a short time, he can be “deceived” with vivid emotions (joy or anger) - they mask the “stamp of poverty”. People unconsciously try to do this when they "play with their face" - but it is impossible to get angry and laugh all their lives - at some point everyone will see their "real face"

So in any case - smile, gentlemen!"