A face you can trust: Iterated learning reveals how stereotypes of facial trustworthiness may propagate in the absence of evidence

When we look at someone’s face, we rapidly and automatically form robust impressions of how trustworthy they appear. Such impressions are vitally important, as our everyday decisions of whom to trust can have profound impacts on collective societal outcomes. Yet while people’s impressions of trustworthiness show a high degree of reliability and agreement with one another, evidence for the accuracy of these impressions is extremely weak. How do...