First impressions on face trustworthiness across ages: Evidence from a cross-sectional study

The present study aimed to explore how the sense of trustworthiness is influenced by age and gender. Participants were to judge computer-generated faces for trustworthiness in two different experimental conditions according to the orientation of the virtual stimuli: canonical (i.e. upright) and inverted (i.e. upside down). Experimental stimuli were presented very briefly and were specifically selected to look: trustworthy, untrustworthy or neutral. The results showed that the tendency to evaluate faces as trustworthy was modulated by both age and gender. In particular, young participants were more prone to judge faces as trustworthy than adult, elderly and child participants. In turn, males were more prone to evaluate faces as trustworthy than females, but this difference was not found among children.