# Why Are Stupid-Looking People Stupid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 26, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674 "2009-09-26T20:07:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/1 "2009-09-26T20:07:16Z")
Recently I’ve read of studies where ordinary people were shown to beable to discern from simply looking at a person’s photograph whether or not that person was gay/lesbian or whether their personality was aggressive or docile. Is there any similar research whereby people have been shown to have the ability to assess a person’s intelligence solely by their facial appearance? I’ve noticed that stupid-looking people, invariably, turn out to be rather dim. I’ve noticed that there is a distinct facial appearance that is associated with being stupid, however it’s not entirely clear to me whether this is due to their inherent facial structure or simply an observed facial expression. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Shig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Shig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shig)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/2 "2009-09-26T20:13:45Z")
Ooooh damn!! I know exactly what you mean, and your wording is perfect. Lookin’ forward to answers on this one. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/3 "2009-09-26T20:16:34Z")
A company I used to work for had a deal with a local mental hospital to give their mentally retarded patients some work taking out trash, picking up debris, etc. It’s not polite to stereotype, and some of these had obvious birth deformities, but ignoring that I’d say that people who are on the dim side of things are more liable to be mouth breathers and they generally don’t have a more at-ease or pleasant and cheerful look that seems unwarranted to the situation. Constant facial expressions do seem to modify the muscles and lines in a person’s face, which we can probably detect as well. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/4 "2009-09-26T20:24:59Z")
Ah, physiognomy! One of Ayn Rand’s favorite ways of determining someone’s innate worth! from: [http://www.face-and-emotion.com/dataface/physiognomy/science.jsp](http://www.face-and-emotion.com/dataface/physiognomy/science.jsp) > [@](#): > > are judgments based on physiognomy accurate? Yes and no. Certain patterns of facial features can be highly associated with psychological characteristics in special circumstances, such as diseases. Other features have a statistical relationship to psychological traits, but are often wrong in specific cases. Many stereotypes about what facial features reveal are not accurate. Still other physiognomic attributions are merely arbitrary and as fallacious as purely random judgments. The site has more info about what physiognomy can and can’t reveal. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/5 "2009-09-26T20:25:35Z")
This is by no means definitive, but my dad said he learned (during mental health training in the 1960s, so take with a HUGE pinch of salt) that over the course of many years, the facial expressions made by people with complex emotional lives shape the muscles of their face; similarly those who are somewhat uncomprehending or placid tend to remain neutral and “flabby”. Similarly, people with mental illnesses who pull “unusual” expressions over many years tend to shape their facial muscles to give them a similarly “unusual” look. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/6 "2009-09-26T20:32:17Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > A company I used to work for had a deal with a local mental hospital to give their mentally retarded patients some work taking out trash, picking up debris, etc. It’s not polite to stereotype, and some of these had obvious birth deformities, but ignoring that I’d say that people who are on the dim side of things are more liable to be mouth breathers and they generally don’t have a more at-ease or pleasant and cheerful look that seems unwarranted to the situation. Down syndrome in particular is associated with a number of physical abnormalities, including small chins, mongoloid-type eye folds, and flabby muscle tone. Seeing a lot of mentally retarded people with those characteristics, they become a common stereotype of stupidity or mental disability. ---
**Author:** ![Shig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Shig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shig)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/7 "2009-09-26T21:58:10Z")
I’m pretty sure that Surreal was referring to just plain old stupid people. Not people who have a low intelligence due to something like a birth defect. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/8 "2009-09-26T22:08:12Z")
Isn’t it a bit unfair to start a thread called “why are stupid-looking people stupid?” and then ask if what you just said is actually true? I don’t know of any research, but people love to make assumptions based on facial expression (intelligence, kindness, trustworthiness), but it’s mostly unfair bunk. You’re really just judging whether a person is attractive and whether they’re at ease. Although, it’s possible that the face can show if someone is in a state of concentration (or never is). So I dunno, would be interesting to find out. Of course, proper scientific research, being crappy as it is, would never tell us interesting subtleties like which nuances of expression can be interpreted which way (and there’s probably a few nuances that are informative, and many more that are mere prejudice). ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/9 "2009-09-27T00:53:25Z")
I think that anyone who thinks that you can reliably tell the intelligence of someone by their physical appearance is just guilty of confirmation bias. ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/10 "2009-09-27T03:03:51Z")
[These fellows](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2il26hgSIcA/SdD7HjM-oJI/AAAAAAAAAGU/EA9EPOTdqoE/s320/south-african-twins.jpg) don’t look like Rhodes scholars, bless their hearts. That’s a pretty obvious example, but it was the first thing that came to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/11 "2009-09-27T03:08:36Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > This is by no means definitive, but my dad said he learned (during mental health training in the 1960s, so take with a HUGE pinch of salt) that over the course of many years, the facial expressions made by people with complex emotional lives shape the muscles of their face; similarly those who are somewhat uncomprehending or placid tend to remain neutral and “flabby”. Similarly, people with mental illnesses who pull “unusual” expressions over many years tend to shape their facial muscles to give them a similarly “unusual” look. I’m not gay, and thus don’t have true “gaydar,” but I swear: I see guys that _have_ to be gay because they look like they’ve engaged in oral sex since their teens; there’s a certain mouth formation that simply screams (at risk of being grotesque) “dick sucker.” What’s interesting is that I can’t similarly identify women’s facial features that identify them as enthusiastic participants. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/12 "2009-09-27T06:49:02Z")
I’ve noticed that gay men who belittle and mock flamboyant, “Ross the Intern”-type homosexuals crack a lot of jokes to that exact effect. A gay guy I used to hang out with in my twenties used to incessantly mock Rex Reed and always cracked that “I swear, that guy’s got stretch marks on his mouth.” ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/13 "2009-09-27T15:38:35Z")
Just in case anyone here doubts that you can make accurate inferences about other people’s personalities or sexual orientations simply by looking at their faces, here are a few studies that may be of interest: > **[Facial structure is a reliable cue of aggressive behavior - PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19686297/)** > > Facial width-to-height ratio is a sexually dimorphic metric that is independent of body size and may have been shaped by sexual selection. We recently showed that this metric is correlated with behavioral aggression in men. In Study 1, observers... [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?\_ob=ArticleURL&\_udi=B6WJB-4RC6RF8-2&\_user=10&\_rdoc=1&\_fmt=&\_orig=search&\_sort=d&\_docanchor=&view=c&\_acct=C000050221&\_version=1&\_urlVersion=0&\_userid=10&md5=87eef87a4e7feef3d342762318cc3814](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJB-4RC6RF8-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=87eef87a4e7feef3d342762318cc3814) [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?\_ob=ArticleURL&\_udi=B6WJB-4WVF6W2-1&\_user=10&\_origUdi=B6WJB-4RC6RF8-2&\_fmt=high&\_coverDate=07%2F25%2F2009&\_rdoc=1&\_orig=article&\_acct=C000050221&\_version=1&\_urlVersion=0&\_userid=10&md5=528804e7a3fe2e75fefb3c366d097154](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJB-4WVF6W2-1&_user=10&_origUdi=B6WJB-4RC6RF8-2&_fmt=high&_coverDate=07%2F25%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_orig=article&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=528804e7a3fe2e75fefb3c366d097154) > **[About face](https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2009/03/05/about-face)** > > People’s creditworthiness, it seems, can be seen in their looks [http://www.popline.org/docs/1101/106620.html](http://www.popline.org/docs/1101/106620.html) > **[Facial dominance in Homo sapiens as honest signaling of male quality](https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/8/5/569/200919)** > > Abstract. For a cohort of military officers, graduates of the class of 1950 of the United States Military Academy at West Point, dominant feudal appearance was [http://repositories.tdl.org/tdl/handle/10106/271?show=full](http://repositories.tdl.org/tdl/handle/10106/271?show=full) > **[Whom Do We Fear Or Trust?](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080805150808.htm)** > > Princeton psychology researchers have developed a computer program that allows scientists to analyze better than ever before what it is about certain human faces that makes them look either trustworthy or fearsome. In doing so, they have also found... [http://www.springerlink.com/content/h09nq1nt74361885/](http://www.springerlink.com/content/h09nq1nt74361885/) I’m still searching for studies on the intelligence of people who have stupid-looking faces. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/14 "2009-09-27T16:31:55Z")
Good links **Surreal** , thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/15 "2009-09-27T16:42:20Z")
Well, I’ve worked with mentally retarded and autistic children my whole adult career, and I say that in many cases you can gauge low intelligence by looking at a person’s face. My theory is that mentally retarded people or people of very low intelligence do not learn “facial posture” like typical people. Most of us spend a lot of time in front of the mirror. We practice facial expressions from a very early age. We are concerned with how we look to others. Mentally retarded people do not have this level of social awareness. They are either unconcerned with or unaware of how their expressions look to others, so they have that slack-jawed, wide-eyed look, or some other atypical facial expression. Take all this with a grain of salt: it’s just my personal theory and of course there are exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/16 "2009-09-27T20:47:40Z")
Not a scientfic cite, but we do have a saying that at birth, you are given a face as gift, but after the age of 30, you are responsible for your own face. Because if you have certain expressions regularly, your muscles will set. Not only because you train facial expression, but because you unconsciously. Surely everybody has noticed people with hard lines on their mouth because they look angry, or with a sneering expression, with worry lines on their forehead. Similar, vacous expression when the brain is running on empty can set. I’m not referring to retarded people, but just to people who are not used to think, to introspect their own soul, to care about anything beyond superficality, etc. And yes, there’s some confirmation bias - when I look at people on the subway, I don’t go up to them and do an IQ test afterward. But I do get to know people at work or sport club or similar, and can thus compare first impressions with later knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/17 "2009-09-27T22:01:12Z")
and we all know that nazis could tell that jewish people were of lower intelligence simply by their facial features (though presumably one didn’t need great intelligence to run international banking cartels aimed at destabilizing the german economy) ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/18 "2009-09-27T22:14:51Z")
One distinct subgroup of this is “hot but painfully stupid” women. For whatever reason, you can just tell that there’s a deep vapidity behind those eyes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/19 "2009-09-27T23:04:36Z")
> [@Savannah](#): > > [These fellows](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2il26hgSIcA/SdD7HjM-oJI/AAAAAAAAAGU/EA9EPOTdqoE/s320/south-african-twins.jpg) don’t look like Rhodes scholars, bless their hearts. > > That’s a pretty obvious example, but it was the first thing that came to mind. [Nor does this guy](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ikWHorei_dE/Seyk7q7YOeI/AAAAAAAAANM/mq9wbhlmrw4/s320/Stephen_Hawking.jpg), but he could teach them! My guess is that apart from in cases of certain genetic or acquired diseases, “stupid-looking” people are no stupider on average than anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674/20 "2009-09-27T23:23:19Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > I’m not gay, and thus don’t have true “gaydar,” but I swear: I see guys that _have_ to be gay because they look like they’ve engaged in oral sex since their teens; there’s a certain mouth formation that simply screams (at risk of being grotesque) “dick sucker.” What’s interesting is that I can’t similarly identify women’s facial features that identify them as enthusiastic participants. I was waiting for someone to say something better than I can, but that’s fucked up. You can’t go down the street and think that the people passing by with peculiar mouths are all faggots. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-stupid-looking-people-stupid/511674.md?page=2)