The Effect of Facial Perception and Academic Performance on Social Centrality

Facial perception is of significant influence on the positions of people in social networks. Particularly, students’ facial traits can affect their social centrality in educational settings (e.g., students looking intelligent can attract more friends). However, in educational environments, the social biases associated with appearances have alarming consequences, and little research has been done to investigate the effect of facial perception on social networks. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively analyze the influence of perceived facial traits on students’ status in social interaction. In this article, we explore the effect of facial perception on the social centrality of students in social networks. Because students’ social centrality is based on both their study ability and facial traits, this study does a comparative analysis of how facial perception and academic performance influence the social centrality of students. Subsequently, the experimental results demonstrate that facial perception, as well as academic performance, closely correlates with the social centrality of students. Finally, this study contributes to a comprehensive and deep understanding of social networks by analyzing facial trait-based social biases.