Hollingworth, H. L. (1922). Human Character in Photographs. In H. L. Hollingworth, Judging human character (pp. 33-44). New York, NY, US: D Appleton & Company.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/11089-003
That character reveals itself in the features, and especially in the facial expression, is a belief of long standing and of quite general tenure. A face or photograph, it is said, "looks intelligent," "beams with pride," "speaks defiance." Sometimes particular details are singled out as significant, but this is usually a rationalization, made after the general impression has already been given. In spite of the disagreement on significant details, there is nevertheless considerable agreement between the verdicts which different people pass on the character denoted by photographs. A group of ten adults were asked individually to arrange a series of twenty photographs in an order of merit on the basis of several different traits of character. The average deviations of the verdicts of the ten judges tended toward more than chance agreement. The practical question is of course not how closely different judges agree in their estimates of photographs, but whether these verdicts bear any relation whatever to the facts. The individuals whose photographs were used were ranked in order of merit for various traits by twenty-five people who were acquainted with all the individuals. These rankings were not based on photographs nor on features, but on actual experience with the people in question through a close acquaintance for a period in no case less than two years. We then compared the judgments of photographs, made by total strangers to the individuals represented, with the combined judgments of these twenty-five acquaintances. The results are very instructive. The individuals judging the photographs tend slightly toward correctness rather than toward error, but the individual coefficients of agreement are so low and so irregular as to be entirely useless. But this does not necessarily mean that photographs tell us nothing about human character. In general the investigations here considered suggest that photographs may be used to convey useful information concerning the character of the individuals they represent, if the proper technique is employed. The technique consists, first, in securing the combined estimates of many general impressions, and second, in recognizing that such combined impressions give significant coefficients of correctness only in the case of certain traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)