Recent research published in journals Pro Swan This suggests that the amount of visible eye whites on a person’s face can have a significant impact on how others perceive them. Researchers found that faces with larger eye whites tend to be judged as more trustworthy, attractive, sociable, and of high social status. These findings provide evidence that even subtle facial features play a role in shaping our moment-to-moment social judgments about others.
The human face serves as a rich source of social information in daily life. When we see a face, we automatically form an impression about that person’s personality, often without consciously thinking about it. This rapid processing may help individuals navigate their social environment by quickly assessing potential threats and positive social interactions. Even within the face, the eye region tends to be particularly important for forming these early social judgments.
Past studies have investigated various characteristics of the eye, such as pupil size and iris color. Scientists also looked at the sclera, the white outer layer of the eyeball. Previous research suggests that brighter or brighter sclera may lead to more positive social evaluations. However, the precise role of scleral exposure, and therefore the total amount of visible white eye, remains relatively unexplored.
Previous studies on scleral exposure have relied primarily on observational data without tightly controlling for other facial features. This has made it difficult to determine whether visible white eyes actually influence social judgment or whether other characteristics are responsible. A research team consisting of Mathias Boyer-Brosseau, Simon Rigoulot, and Sébastien Hétu set out to address this gap. The authors designed an experiment that systematically manipulated the visible scleral area while keeping other details of the face constant.
The researchers conducted the study using an online survey platform. They initially recruited 200 participants from the United States and Canada through Amazon Mechanical Turk, a popular online crowdsourcing platform. After excluding participants who failed the attention check or had abnormal responses, the final sample included 162 U.S. adults. The group consisted of 107 men and 55 women with an average age of approximately 39 years, the majority of whom identified as white.
During the experiment, participants viewed a series of 100 photos with neutral facial expressions. These images are taken from an established photo collection called the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces database. The researchers digitally altered the eye area of each face to create two different versions. One half of the face was modified to show a small amount of scleral exposure, and the other half was modified to show a large amount of scleral exposure.
To make the images look natural, scientists used precise planimetry. They calculated the scleral area ratio, which is the percentage of white area compared to the total visible area. The less exposed model had approximately 31.5 percent scleral area. The large exposure model featured an area of approximately 43.8 percent, avoiding highly unusual proportions that could appear unrealistic.
Under each image, participants answered four specific questions using a 10-point scale. The questions asked how much you trust that person, whether you interact with that person, and whether you find him or her physically attractive. The fourth question asked participants to estimate a person’s social status within society. The study was self-paced, allowing participants to take their time and evaluate each face.
The researchers found that scleral exposure had consistent effects across all four categories of social judgment. Faces with larger exposed areas of sclera were rated higher in terms of trustworthiness, attractiveness, sociability, and social status. In other words, when more of a face’s white eyes were visible, participants tended to view that person in a more positive light compared to the same face with smaller sclera.
This preference for greater scleral exposure was common to both male and female participants. This effect was applied to photos of men’s and women’s faces alike. This lack of sex-based differences suggests that the highly visible sclera functions as a general social cue rather than a feature strictly tied to mating preferences. The researchers noted that apart from the scleral findings, female faces were generally rated more positively than male faces by all participants, and the difference was particularly pronounced among female raters.
The authors propose several possible explanations for why humans prefer faces with large sclera. One idea is that the white part is highly visible, making it easier to follow people’s line of sight. Eye tracking is an essential part of human interaction because it helps us infer where someone’s attention is directed. This allows individuals to interpret implicit attitudes and more accurately predict the behavior of others.
Another possible explanation involves age-related facial changes. The overall visibility of the eyes naturally changes throughout a person’s life. Scleral exposure typically peaks in your early 20s and gradually decreases from adulthood onwards as the tissue around the eye softens. Therefore, large visible white areas may serve as a fundamental signal of youthfulness, vitality, and health. This concept is related to neoteny, a process in which infantile or youthful physical characteristics are retained into adulthood.
This study presents several limitations that readers should be aware of. Because participants and the faces photographed were predominantly Caucasian, these effects may reflect group-specific trends. Future studies are needed to determine whether the preference for larger scleras extends to other populations and cultural groups. Addressing this lack of diversity helps scientists understand whether the phenomenon is a universal feature of humanity or shaped by specific cultural environments.
Additionally, digital modification increased the overall eye size and provided greater scleral exposure. It is possible that the sheer size of the eyes, rather than just their whiteness, contributed to their social reputation. The authors note that it is difficult to completely separate the size of the white area from the overall size of the eye without making the image look unnatural. Future studies may use advanced geometric shape modeling to isolate these specific variables.
It is also possible that unintended emotional signals influenced participants during the rating task. Faces with less exposed sclera may have been unconsciously perceived as squinting, which humans may associate with negative emotions such as anger or disgust. Even though all faces started with a neutral expression, the size of the eye opening may have slightly altered the perceived emotional state. Measuring how participants interpret altered facial emotions could help clarify this issue in future experiments.
The authors also acknowledge that facial features do not function in isolation. In everyday life, the whites of the eyes interact with pupil size, iris brightness, and other facial features. Researchers note that analyzing these characteristics together can provide a more realistic picture of how social cognition works. Additionally, this study noted high correlations between the four social categories.
Because of this correlation, participants who rated a face as attractive also tended to rate it as trustworthy and sociable. This overlap is often referred to as the attraction halo effect, a psychological bias in which positive impressions in one area influence opinions in other areas. Disentangling these overlapping judgments remains a complex challenge for psychologists. Despite these challenges, this experiment provided evidence that the simple amount of visible whites tends to sway our initial social opinions.
The study, “Scleral exposure influences social judgments of the trustworthiness, attractiveness, sociability, and social status of Caucasian faces,” was authored by Matthias Boyer-Brosseau, Simon Liguro, and Sebastien Etu.
