Social perception of faces around the world: How well does the valence-dominance model generalize across world regions? (Registered Report Stage 1)

Abstract

Over the last ten years, Oosterhof and Todorov’s (2008) valence-dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgments of faces. To which world regions this model applies is a critical, yet unanswered, question. We will address this question by replicating Oosterhof and Todorov’s (2008) methodology across all world regions (Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Central America and Mexico, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the USA and Canada, Scandinavia, South America, the UK, and Western Europe; planned N > 9,000) using a diverse set of face stimuli. If we uncover systematic regional differences in social judgments, this will fundamentally change how social perception research is conducted and interpreted. If we find consistency across regions, this will ground future theory in an appropriately powered empirical test of an underlying assumption.