Brown-eyed men perceived to be more dominant

(Last Update June 21)

The authors discovered that males with brown eyes were considered more dominant than males with blue eyes, but when they altered their pictures to turn brown eyes into blue, the effect persisted. Thus, it is not the color itself that creates the impression of dominance, but rather other factors correlated with the brown-eyed phenotype.

One of these "other factors" could be chin breadth, which is known to be perceived as dominant. From the paper:

The question arises: why are brown-eyed males rated as more dominant than blue-eyed? Some facial features such as square jaws, thick eyebrows and broad cheekbones are linked with higher perceived dominance; facial submissiveness, on the other hand, is characterized by a round face with large eyes, smallish nose, and high eyebrows (Berry, 1990; Berry & Mcarthur, 1986; Cunningham,Barbee, & Pike, 1990; Mazur, Halpern, & Udry, 1994; Mueller & Mazur,1997; Thornhill & Gangestad, 1994). The morphological differences between blue-eyed and brown-eyed males were visualized by deformation of thin-plate splines (Fig. 3). In contrast with blue-eyed males, brown-eyed males have statistically broader and rather massive chins, broader (laterally prolonged) mouths, larger noses, and eyes that are closer together with larger eyebrows. In contrast, blue-eyed males show smaller and sharper chins, mouths that are laterally narrower, noses smaller, and a greater span between the eyes. Especially the broader massive chin, bigger nose, and larger eyebrows of brown-eyed males may explain their higher perceived dominance.

The authors propose that true genetic linkage between eye color and these other facial features is unlikely, as eye color is determined by few loci, and these are unlikely to be the same ones that influence these other facial features. Thus, they propose a different explanation, namely that blue-eyed and brown-eyed children are treated differently by their parents as they grow up, and this "different treatment" manifests itself phenotypically. The argument in favor of different treatment stems from the fact that many people are born blue-eyed, but their eye color is set to a darker shade eventually. The authors write:

It is possible that subjects with blue eyes are treated as a small child for a longer period than brown-eyed children. Such early social experience may have been literally ‘‘inscribed” into their faces, preserved until adulthood, and finally bring on the perception of higher submissiveness. Rosenberg and Kagan (1987, 1989) investigated the association between eye color and behavioral inhibition, revealing that children with blue eyes are more inhibited. Coplan et al. (1998) found a significant interaction between eye color and social wariness within preschoolers. Blueeyed males were rated as more socially wary, i.e. being more temperamentally inhibited, displaying more reticent behavior and having more internalizing problems, than males with brown eyes, though there were no differences between blue- and brown-eyed females (Coplan et al., 1998).

There is an alternative explanation, that requires neither genetic linkage nor an environmental factor such as upbringing. That factor is latent population structure.

In a truly long-term random mating population, and assuming that eye color is not genetically linked with e.g. chin breadth, then all combinations of chin breadth and eye color would occur with a probability determined entirely by the frequency of their genetic determinants in the population.

However, consider the possibility that the population is an incomplete mixture of a blue-eyed "facially submissive" population element, and a brown-eyed "facially dominant" one. If that was the case, then brown-eyed folks would tend to have dominant facial features by reason of their ancestry rather than any genetic linkage between the two traits.

As an analogy, consider a hypothetical population made up of Europeans and East Asians. Initially, there would be a statistical association between straight hair and short stature in the total population that would be entirely due to population structure rather than either pleiotropic effects of genes affecting both characters or genetic linkage of hair/stature genes.

The Czech population is intermediate in its bigonial diameter between Germans and Slovaks (its immediate neighbors) [1], they are also genetically intermediate between Germans and Slavs. Procopius noted in early medieval times that Slavs had intermediate pigmentation. So, I wouldn't discount the possibility that population structure due to incomplete blending may account for eye color/facial structure associations in this population.

UPDATE:

Here are some values for German and Czech males from [1].

Bigonial (go-go): 97.6 / 109.5

Nasal height (n-sn): 52 / 54.0

Nasal breadth (al-al): 34.0 / 36.2

Mouth breadth (ch-ch): 50.9 / 53.8

Intercanthal distance (en-en): 31.2/30.9

Unfortunately there is no data for the eyebrows, but all of the above differences are in the expected direction under my theory: Germans have narrower jaws, smaller noses, narrower mouths, and eyes placed further apart than Czechs.

So, I think it is quite likely that the blue-eyed facially submissive type found in this sample may have a German origin.

PS: I did an average of the blue- and brown-eyed averages for reference:

[1] International anthropometric study of facial morphology in various ethnic groups/races, Leslie G Farkas, J Craniofac Surg 16:615-46

Personality and Individual Differences
Volume 49, Issue 1, July 2010, Pages 59-64

Eye color predicts but does not directly influence perceived dominance in men

Karel Kleisner et al.

This study focuses on the relationship between eye color, gender, and psychological characteristics perceived from the human face. Photographs of 40 male and 40 female students were rated for perceived dominance and attractiveness. Attractiveness showed no relation with eye color. In contrast, eye color had a significant effect on perceived dominance in males: brown-eyed men were rated as more dominant than men with blue eyes. To control for the effect of eye color, we studied perceived dominance on the same photographs of models after changing the iris color. The eye color had no effect on perceived dominance. This suggests that some other facial features associated with eye color affect the perception of dominance in males. Geometric morphometrics have been applied to reveal features responsible for the differences in facial morphospace of blue-eyed and brown-eyed males.

Link