ArticleAnnals of the New York Academy of Sciences2021
Morality is in the eye of the beholder: the neurocognitive basis of the "anomalous-is-bad" stereotype.
Article in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Changing the narrative: stories reduce biases against anomalous faces.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Imagining the Future Aged Self Reduces Ageism: The Role of Self-Other Overlap and the Moderating Effect of Gain-Loss Framing.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Who Do We Remember? Facial Anomalies, Race, and Sex in Social Categorization.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Face Value: Beauty, Punishment, and the Moral Politics of Appearance.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- A Narrative Scoping Review of Neuroaesthetics and Objective Understanding of Human Appearance.Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open · 2025Article
- Visual Attention toward Patients with Hemifacial Microsomia Reconstruction: A Prospective Eye-Tracking Study.Plastic and reconstructive surgery · 2025Article
- Human body modifications and transformations in remaining human and the future of nursing practice.Belitung nursing journal · 2025Article
- Assessing the roles of shape prototypicality and sexual dimorphism in ratings of the trustworthiness of faces.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Evidence against the "anomalous-is-bad" stereotype in Hadza hunter gatherers.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The psychosocial burden of visible disfigurement following traumatic injury.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- Aesthetic appraisals of literary style and emotional intensity in narrative engagement are neurally dissociable.Communications biology · 2021Article
- The Face Image Meta-Database (fIMDb) & ChatLab Facial Anomaly Database (CFAD): Tools for research on face perception and social stigma.Methods in Psychology (Online) · 2021Article
- The effect of aging on facial attractiveness: An empirical and computational investigation.Acta psychologica · 2021Article
- Beauty and Wellness in the Semantic Memory of the Beholder.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Are people with flawed faces regarded as having flawed moral characters? An "anomalous-is-bad" stereotype is hypothesized to facilitate negative biases against people with facial anomalies (e.g., scars), but whether and how these biases affect behavior and brain functioning remain open questions. We examined responses to anomalous faces in the brain (using a visual oddball paradigm), behavior (in economic games), and attitudes. At the level of the brain, the amygdala demonstrated a specific neural response to anomalous faces-sensitive to disgust and a lack of beauty but independent of responses to salience or arousal. At the level of behavior, people with anomalous faces were subjected to less prosociality from participants highest in socioeconomic status. At the level of attitudes, we replicated previously reported negative character evaluations made about individuals with facial anomalies, and further identified explicit biases directed against them as a group. Across these levels of organization, the specific amygdala response to facial anomalies correlated with stronger just-world beliefs (i.e., people get what they deserve), less dispositional empathic concern, and less prosociality toward people with facial anomalies. Characterizing the "anomalous-is-bad" stereotype at multiple levels of organization can reveal underappreciated psychological burdens shouldered by people who look different.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.