Alex Todorov said:

“The link between facial features and character may be tenuous at best, but that doesn’t stop our minds from sizing other people up at a glance. We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them. It appears that we are hard-wired to draw these inferences in a fast, unreflective way.”

All Things Considered, June 9, 2005 Forget political polls. Scientists usually can tell whether political candidates will win or lose by testing voters’ reactions to the contestants’ faces. A study in the journal Science shows that voters chose the face that looks more “competent.” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4696649

Professor Todorov’s Princeton Website
http://weblamp.princeton.edu/~psych/psychology/research/todorov/index.php