Assessing anxiety from a photograph of a stranger’s face by observers with different levels of professional expertise

Abstract

The study explored the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity in assessing anxiety from a person’s face when perceiving a photographic portrait of a stranger. It aimed to determine the contribution of professional experience to the ability to objectively perceive the individual psychological characteristics of others, as well as the influence of the models’ facial characteristics on the observers’ assessment of the models’ anxiety. Two groups of respondents were compared: novice specialists aged 18–23 years without work experience or experience in personal therapy, and professional psychologists aged 22–52 years with experience in psychological counselling and personal therapy. It was assumed that these groups would differ in the relationship between the assessment of their own anxiety and the assessment of a stranger’s anxiety. Participants assessed anxiety in facial photographs on a 5-point scale, from 1 (no anxiety expressed) to 5 (high anxiety). A comparative analysis of facial characteristics was conducted between models with high and low anxiety scores, including analysis of facial stress features, asymmetry, reduced muscle tone, and specific facial indicators of different emotional modalities. Novice specialists tended to project their own anxiety when assessing a stranger’s anxiety, ignoring the facial features of the models. Professional psychologists demonstrated greater objectivity, basing their judgments on the models’ facial characteristics. The faces of models perceived as highly anxious were characterized by a greater proportion of facial stress features and a significantly lower proportion of specific indicators of basic emotions. Conversely, the faces of models perceived as low-anxious showed a lower proportion of stress features and a significantly higher proportion of emotion-specific indicators, predominantly those of joy. The findings suggest that the perception of individual psychological characteristics from a person’s face depends on the observer’s professional experience and level of personal development, which are underpinned by the corresponding mechanisms of perception that affect the ability to read objective information from the face.