Study: How aggressive men may look

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ST. CATHARINES, Ontario, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- People tend to judge men with wider, longer faces as more aggressive, Canadian researchers have found.

Psychologists Justin M. Carre, Cheryl M. McCormick and Catherine J. Mondloch of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, said glancing at a picture was enough for volunteers to predict aggressiveness.

The study, published in Psychological Science, found volunteers' estimates of aggression correlated highly with the previously accessed actual aggressive behavior. The volunteers rated how aggressive they thought each person was on a scale of 1-7 after viewing each face for either 2,000 milliseconds or 39 milliseconds.

The researchers also found the volunteers' estimates correlated with the facial width-to-height ratios, a measure of the distance between the right and left cheeks and the distance from the upper lip to the mid-brow.

"The greater the width-to-height ratios, the higher the aggressive rating, suggesting that we may use this aspect of facial structure to judge potential aggression in others," the researchers said in a statement.

Width-to-height ratios has already been linked with greater aggression, they said. For example, a study showed hockey players with greater width-to-height ratios earn more penalty minutes per game than players with lower width-to-height ratios.