ABSTRACT
Schopenhauer describes that as a rule a mans face says more of interest than does his tongue. It is the monogram of all his thoughts and aspirations. Although many disputes the claim that thoughts and aspirations are imprinted on the face, there is much that is reflected in the face, and also people discover using the face as a key to psychological traits advanced by considering a person's face does reveal. Through innate associations, evolutionarily prepared learning, and culturally specific learning, these facial qualities reveal the stable personal attributes of sex, race, and identity; the rapidly changing attribute of emotion; and the more slowly changing attributes of age and physical and mental fitness. This chapter considers the ability of facial cues to reveal various adaptively significant attributes, and demonstrates overgeneralized responses to some of these facial cues that serve as a foundation for reading traits in faces.
