Being described as average-looking might not sound like much of a compliment, but having a ‘typical’ face means people trust you more.

没有人会觉得相貌平平会是一种赞美，不过一张“大众脸”能让你看上去更可靠。

Psychologists created a scale of faces, ranging from unattractive to attractive, and found those around the half-way point were rated as the most trustworthy.

心理学家们给出一系列长相美丑不同的照片，发现外貌中等的人被认为最值得信任。

The experts believe that we are more comfortable with familiar faces because we are tuned¹ to fear the unknown and unusual.

专家认为大众脸让我们感到舒服的原因是我们害怕未知和不寻常的事物。

Lead researcher Carmel Sofer, from Princeton University said: ‘Face typicality likely indicates familiarity and cultural affiliation².

普林斯顿大学首席研究员卡梅尔・索弗（Carmel Sofer）说：“脸部特征的典型化意味着熟悉感和文化认同感。”

‘As such, these findings have important implications for understanding social perception, including cross-cultural perceptions and interactions.’

“这些研究成果对于了解社会认知，包括跨文化认知与交流，也具有重要的意义。”

For their study, the researchers created a ‘typical’ face by digitally combining 92 female faces.

研究人员通过数字技术拼合92名女性的脸部特征，创造出一张“大众脸”。

They also created an ‘attractive’ face by averaging the faces of 12 women who were independently rated as the most beautiful, from a separate set of photos.

他们还通过独立评分从另一组照片中选出12名最美貌的女子，并用她们的脸拼合出一张“美人脸”。

The typical face and the attractive face were then merged³ together, and from this, the researchers created variations that had differing levels of attractiveness and typicality.

大众脸和美人脸随后被结合在一起，研究者们借此分析出划分长相美丑的差异特征。

The result was a continuum of faces ranging from least attractive to most attractive, with the most typical face in the middle.

研究结果中长相由丑到美逐次演变，最典型的大众脸排列居中。

To remove gender⁴ bias⁵, only women rated the faces on a nine-point scale for trustworthiness or attractiveness.

为排除性别偏见干扰，在9分满分制的评价系统中，只有女性能够参与长相可信度和外表排名的调查。

After each face was rated on three separate occasions, the results showed a U-shaped relationship between face typicality and trustworthiness.

参与者们按三种情况分别为每一张脸打分。结果显示脸部特征的典型化与可信度之间呈U型关系。

That is, the closer a face was to the most typical face, the more trustworthy it was considered to be.

也就是说，长相特征越接近典型的大众脸越能获得他人的信任。

When it came to attractiveness, however, typicality didn’t seem to play a role.

不过，脸部特征的典型化与外表是否出众之间似乎不存在类似的联系。

Participants rated faces as increasingly better-looking beyond the midpoint.

参与者打分5分以上的长相，分数越高越漂亮。

The research is published in the journal Psychological Science.

该研究发表于《心理科学》（Psychological Science）期刊。