Impact of the compensation effect on facial representations

In the literature on social perception and intergroup relations, compensation effect is defined as the tendency of people to evaluate a target considered higher than another on one of the two fundamental dimensions of social judgment, i.e. warmth and competence, as being comparatively lower on the other dimension. This phenomenon has been largely documented, although most studies have relied on explicit measures. A key question is whether compensation is an automatic process or if it is driven by social desirability, that is, a will to appear fair. To shed light on this question, this work investigates the compensation effect at the facial representation level in two studies, by means of a reverse correlation measure. This measure allows for an investigation of participants’ facial representations at the implicit level. The results of Study 1 support the hypothesis that compensation is present at the implicit level, while the results of Study 2 do not. A series of possible reasons for these findings are discussed, and we suggest some recommendations for future works.