Abstract
Objectives: Previous studies on facial perception suggest that people are to some degree able to assess personal and behavioural characteristics such as aggressiveness or fighting ability. Up to now, conducted research about assessment of fighting ability was based on subjective ratings only.
Here we tested the relationship between perceived characteristics of male face and results of previous fights. Methods: 146 photos of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) caucasian fighter's faces and their fight scores were downloaded from the MMA division UFC website.
The standardized photos were rated for aggressiveness in online survey by 237 Czech men (mean age=26.9; SD=6.2) and 448 women (mean age=26.2; SD=6.2). Possible association between fighting ability and its perception was analysed by GLM and its link to facial morphology by geometric morphometry.
Results: Perceived aggressiveness was positively associated with proportion of fights won. However, this effect was modulated by fighter's weight.
The link between wins and perceived aggressiveness remained significant for heavy-weight but not for light or middle -weights. To detect facial features responsible for attribution of aggressiveness we used shape regression.
The regression of shape data on proportion of wined fights significantly predicted the facial features associated with the success in fight. Conclusions: Our results indicate that ability to succeed in physical confrontation is associated with perceived aggressiveness and facial morphology perhaps due to the action of testosterone.
However, this is not the case in lighter weight categories where other abilities are associated with success in fights, and these may not be manifested in face.