Read on Twitter
Face researchers, we need to be more careful describing research. This paper basically suggests that people pose in ways that are stereotypically associated with trustworthiness (e.g. smile more) when trust is more important in a society. But itâs so easily read as phrenology. https://twitter.com/abebab/status/1309387357595013120
The abstract of the paper and some tweets do mention âdisplays of trustworthinessâ, but the title and many tweets just use the shorthand âtrustworthinessâ, which many are interpreting as âaccurate index of behavioural trustworthinessâ.
The regional analysis makes this even more important. I donât know much about the measure used here, but most measures comparing regions suffer from cultural biases that favour western countries. Itâs prima facie nonsense to claim one regionâs people are more or less trustworthy.
I read the measure as a comparison of how socially valued trustworthiness is in that region, but am happy to be corrected (and the media about the paper is vague on this).
And regardless of a researcherâs good intentions, tech like this can be easily co-opted by a company claiming to screen potential job applicants for the most trustworthy, or decide who is least likely to default on a mortgage, or other horrific uses.
Iâm curious to hear from other face researcher how much they think about potential misinterpretations and malicious use of research, and how much responsibility and culpability a basic researcher has. I know I certainly didnât give these issues enough thought in the past.
As @ProfDaveAndress points out, the original tweet thread shifts away from perceived trustworthiness. And then gets into cross-cultural assertions based on weak correlational analyses that seem very susceptible to QRPs. My baseline assumption of good will is being tested. https://twitter.com/ProfDaveAndress/status/1309392771371982849
