Social psychologists have long known that humans make snap judgments about each other based on nothing more than the way we look and, in particular, our faces. We use these judgments to determine whether a new acquaintance is trustworthy or clever or dominant or sociable or humorous and so on. These decisions may or may not be right and are by no means objective, but they are consistent. Given the same face in the same conditions, people tend to judge it in the same way. And that raises an interesting possibility.

Social psychologists have long known that humans make snap judgements about each other based on nothing more than the way we look and, in particular, our faces. We use these judgements to determine whether a new acquaintance is trustworthy or clever or dominant or sociable or humorous and so on. These decisions may or may not be right and are by no means objective, but they are consistent. Given the same face in the same conditions, people tend to judge it in the same way. And that raises an interesting possibility.