Keelah Williams
Associate Professor of Psychology
Expertise: law, stereotyping and prejudice, and evolutionary psychology
According to studies, people’s facial width to height ratio (fWHR) — the structure of their face —has an effect on how we perceive and behave toward each other. From examining fWHR’s impact on gender perceptions, legal treatment, and mental health to extrapolating to friendships, the death penalty, and social status, the Williams and the student researchers picked their own brains to figure out how ours work.
Matthew Dooley ’27, Emily Pogozelski ’26, Chayti Biswas ’27, Madison Goodman-Leong ’25, and Margot Delaney ’26 were all based on campus with Williams. Each student explored a different angle of the effects of fWHR. “I focused on determining whether or not the impact of disgust on trust differs for close friends versus distant acquaintances,” Biswas said. “It was beautiful to take an idea of disgust and distrust and fully develop it into a research question.”
The students’ research went beyond literature reviews: they did everything from submitting an IRB application and running studies to putting a poster together. The group shared and extrapolated on their findings. For example, they learned that men with wider faces tend to be stereotyped as more aggressive, dominant, and untrustworthy. Their findings led to new questions such as how a wider face may disadvantage someone in a child custody situation or on trial for a violent crime.
“One of the findings that I found most interesting was that assumptions about male physical toughness extended to mental health, such that the mental health of men with wider faces — those socially coded as the toughest — may go unnoticed and untreated at higher rates,” Dooley said.
“One of the findings that I found most interesting was that ... the mental health of men with wider faces — those socially coded as the toughest — may go unnoticed and untreated at higher rates.”
While the students all worked on different aspects of fWHR, Williams gave them the resources and space to pursue their own interests. For example, Goodman-Leong, who wants to become a psychiatric nurse, investigated how dominance, social status, and stress are interwoven. She said she’s interested in seeing how personality traits affect stress and well-being, “so investigating the way traits couple with social factors to affect people’s mental health and how interventions can be applied was really interesting.”
All the students found that their research helped inform their ambitions. “Coming out of freshman year, I was still fairly new to psychology,” Dooley said. “I was excited to work with Professor Williams because I knew she also had a background in law, and I wanted to know more about how the fields are related.” He now wants to double major in public policy and psychology.
Biswas says her love for the discipline was reaffirmed. “Back home when aunties and uncles ask me what I want to do as a future career, I find myself answering without hesitation: ‘Psychology research!’”
Pogozelski emphasized that their great experience was largely due to each others’ company. “Our collective enthusiasm drove us to put meaningful effort into the projects, which resulted in rewarding outcomes. Even when things were difficult, like picking apart a confusing study design or analyzing a complicated finding, we were doing it together and helping one another, which always made it enjoyable.”
Biswas similarly lauded the group chemistry: “There was never a dull moment; we would always find moments where we crack up and enjoy each other’s presence! It caused the research to fly by quicker than I expected! If I could sum up my summer research in a few words, it would be fulfilling, curiosity, and laughter.”
