Negative perceptions of people with facial disfigurement depend on a general attitude rather than on specific concerns

The well-established preference for people with typical faces over those with disfigured faces has several potential causes relating to perceptions of attractiveness, health, social skills, emotional stability, or contribution to society. The aim was to compare which of these facets of evaluation would have the stronger impact on the preference for typical faces over disfigured faces. A standard measure of unconscious associations, the implicit association test (IAT), was employed in two experiments (n = 110 and n = 153) with participants drawn from the local community of a major metropolitan area of the U.K. The IAT was implemented with different sets of words relating to the facets of attractiveness, health, social skills, emotional stability, and contribution, to investigate the association between these facets and the preference for typical over disfigured faces. A negative implicit association with facial disfigurement was observed for all facets in both experiments with no overall difference among the facets. There was reduced negativity for participants with personal acquaintance for all facets except attractiveness, suggesting that evaluation of attractiveness follows a more direct route than the other facets. These results suggest a broad, general evaluative negativity associated with facial disfigurement, rather than a negativity focused on particular fears or concerns. This implication is that interventions need not focus on any particular aspect of personality or ability as any positive presentation of people with facial disfigurement would enhance perceptions.