A common problem afflicting modern psychology is that it's mainly based on experiments with middle-class white people, often from North America or Europe. Open up the field of inquiry to other cultures, social circles or ethnic groups and different trends come to the fore.
Take the effects of a baby-face. Decades of studies have found that rounded, smooth, young-looking faces engender trust and sympathy. People adorned with such youthful looks tend to be treated with more sensitivity and patience, receive more lenient sentences, and make better spokespeople during PR crises. But these disarming faces come at a price - they're also associated with weakness and incompetence, which can harm those striving for positions of authority. Indeed, previous studies have shown that baby faces are rare among the highest echelons of business.
But these studies have only ever been done in white men. Robert Livingston and Nicholas Pearce found that the opposite is true for black men. Baby faces are more common among black chief executive officers (CEOs) than their white peers. Not only that, but there was some suggestion that men with such faces tend to command larger salaries and lead more powerful corporations than those with sterner countenances.
Black people in the US face more obstacles in their path to top than their white counterparts do. In addition to proving their diligence, skill and competence, they must fight against prejudices and stereotypes of black people as less intelligent or even threatening. Livingston and Pearce suggest that far from being a hindrance, a disarming face actually helps black men by cancelling out the stereotypes that might otherwise weight down their social climb.
