The effect gender, glasses and eye-openness has on person perception and perceived intelligence

First impressions play a significant role in predicting life successes such as employment opportunities. Perceived intelligence can fluctuate depending on factors such as gender, wearing of accessories such as glasses and perceived level of fatigue. Research has shown that glasses can affect perceived intelligence in the US, however, there is a lack of information on whether the glasses would affect perceived intelligence in an Irish based sample. The present study aims to examine whether glasses, gender of the individual being observed and level of eye-openness will affect perceived intelligence scores. The study utilised an online experimental approach. Participants were recruited through convenience snowball sampling (N= 120). A 3-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) displayed significant results for independent variables gender and glasses. Suggesting that the gender of the individual observed and wearing glasses affected perceived intelligence scores. However, no significant result was found for eye openness. These findings suggest that there may be factors that affect perceived intelligence. Implications of these findings include, that policymakers on recruitment practices and recruiters should be made aware that appearance and gender affect their decision making.