By presenting these same faces to 33 volunteers as part of a new online experiment, and asking them to identify them as either male or female, the study’s authors identified a clear gender bias: people rated the more competent faces as male and the less competent ones as female.

They also found that the competent faces were generally perceived as being more confident and “masculine”.

In a second experiment, the researchers manipulated photorealistic images of male and female faces so that they appeared more masculine and asked 250 online volunteers to rate how competent they thought these people might be based on appearance.

It transpired that the most masculine faces were also viewed as the most competent.