This is a bit of a strange research to me.The study focussed on the link between the facial width-to-height ratio (FWH) and dominance in men. Participants were asked to rate different aspects of the personalities of 100 men using a single photograph. The results showed that the CEO’s faces had a greater FWH ratio compared to the control group and were perceived as more dominant and successful.

Professor Ward concludes in the press release: “There are two possible explanations for this finding. Either FWH is a reliable marker of a person’s dominant personality or that we are more likely to select leaders with this trait. On balance the evidence is most consistent with the former. We know from previous research that men with higher FWH behave in a more competitive way suggesting the difference lies within them rather than others. This finding provides evidence for a link between business leadership and FWH; further research is required to establish if social dominance is the mediating psychological trait.”

Abstract of the research:

The relative proportion of the internal features of a face (the facial width-to-height ratio, FWH) has been shown to be related to individual differences in behaviour in males, specifically competitiveness and aggressiveness. In this study, we show that the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the leading UK businesses have greater FWHs than age- and sex-matched controls. We demonstrate that perceivers, naive as to the nature of the stimuli, rate the faces of CEOs as higher in dominance or success, and that ratings of dominance or success are themselves correlated with the FWH ratio. We find no association with other inferred traits such as trustworthiness, attraction or aggression. The latter is surprising given previous research demonstrating a link between FWH and ratings of aggression. We speculate that the core association may be between FWH and drive for dominance or power, but this can be interpreted as aggression only in particular circumstances (e.g., when the stimuli are comprised of faces of young, as opposed to middle-aged, men).