Experimental Material

The data were gathered from a specifically structured questionnaire to be filled in online¹. The questionnaire was made up of 157 [7 + 20 + 10 + 120 (30^∗4)] questions and divided into 4 sections.

The first of these was directed at gathering general information on the sample group and on personal data (age, gender, student/worker) and on the type and frequency of social networks used (7 questions).

The second (20 questions) aimed at examining the subject’s level of empathy through the BES Basic Empathy Scale (Italian version in Albiero et al., 2009). The third (10 questions) aimed at revealing personality traits with the Big Five Personality Test (Gosling et al., 2003). The last section (with a total of 120 questions) contained 30 faces, 15 men and 15 women, selected from a free database of face stimuli, the Chicago Face Database (CFD version 2.0.2-March 2016; Ma et al., 2015).

Each subject saw the face stimuli selected in sequence and could see each face for as long as they liked. For each face four questions were posed, and evaluation of the face was expressed on a five-point scale regarding: the level of masculinity/femininity (How does this face look? 1 “masculine”–5 “feminine”), weakness/strength (Can you sense if this person is 1 “very weak”–5 “very strong”), the possibility that the person could have been the victim or perpetrator of mistreatment over the course of their lives (Do you think that this person could have endured past mistreatment? 1 “absolutely not”–5 “absolutely yes,” Do you think that this person, in the past, could have had aggressive behavior toward other people? 1 “absolutely not”–5 “absolutely yes”). The face that was evaluated was always displayed while the participant answered the four questions concerning it.

In order to measure the level of empathic responsiveness, an Italian version of the BES Basic Empathy Scale (Jolliffe and Farrington, 2006; Albiero et al., 2009) was used, which defines empathy as a multi-dimensional concept. This includes a cognitive dimension, CE (cognitive empathy), interpreted as the ability to recognize and understand the emotions of others, and an affective dimension, AE (affective empathy), interpreted as the suitable emotional response to the emotions of others.

The Italian version, like the English one (Jolliffe and Farrington, 2006), is made up of 20 questions and includes 11 items to reveal AE (item 1^∗, 2, 4, 5, 7^∗, 8^∗, 11, 13^∗, 15, 17, 18^∗) and 9 items to reveal CE (item: 3, 6^∗, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 19^∗, 20^∗). The scores of the items indicated with an ^∗ have to be reversed (e.g., 1 becomes 5). For each item individuals were asked to express their level of agreement on a scale akin to the Likert scale from 1 “never true” to 5 “always true” (e.g., “A friend’s emotions do not touch me much” 1 “never true”–5 “always true”). The points relative to the two subscales and the overall points were calculated by adding up the two subscales (BTS BesTotalScore) for each individual.

For personality evaluation, a 10-item short version of the Big Five translated into Italian was used (Gosling et al., 2003; Rammstedt and John, 2007; Guido et al., 2015). The scale defines personality based on five main traits: extraversion (items, 1^∗,6), agreeableness (items 2, 7^∗), conscientiousness (items 3^∗, 8), neuroticism (items 4, 9^∗), and openness to experience (5^∗, 10). For each trait the scale identifies two items that define opposite concepts (e.g., for the extraversion aspect: “I see myself as a reserved person,” “I see myself as a person who is social and at ease”). For each item the individuals are asked to express their level of agreement on a Likert-type scale from 1 “do not agree” to 5 “completely agree.” The items indicated with an “^∗” are reverse questions.

Thirty high-resolution photograph images were presented to the participants that show both male (n = 15) and female faces (n = 15). Three different orders of image presentation were created to avoid a “presentation sequence” bias. The face stimuli were selected from the Chicago Face Database (CFD version 2.0.2—March 2016) (Ma et al., 2015), free facial stimuli of 597 high-resolution, standardized photographs of black and white men and women of varying ethnicity (Asian, Black, Latino, White) between the ages of 18 and 40. For each face there are extensive data including both physical attributes (e.g., face width, nose shape.) as well as subjective ratings by independent judges (e.g., attractiveness, masculinity, femininity…). The database includes photographs with varying facial expressions: neutral, angry, fear, happy with closed mouth, happy with open mouth.

For our study we chose faces that were homogeneous in their ethnicity (White) and considered neutral (N) in emotional expressiveness. The average age attributed to the faces by the participants of the CFD study was 22.31, SD = 1.57, whereas the averages for attractiveness (3.37, SD = 0.67), dominance (2.40, SD = 0.55), trustworthiness (3.46, SD = 0.35), and perceived racial prototypicality (3.57, SD = 0.78) relate to a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely), and are all relevant aspects particularly influential for our study (see Figure 1).

Four of the face stimuli extracted from the Chicago Face Database (Ma et al., 2015) considered in the study.

Male and female faces significantly differed only in age (average age, M + F = 22.31; males = 21.35, SD = 1.64; females = 23.26, SD = 0.77; t = 1,707, df = 28, p < 0.000).