Data from: Human face structure correlates with professional baseball performance: insights from professional Japanese baseball players

In our daily lives, we use faces as a major source of information about other people. Recent work has begun to highlight how one's facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is linked to a number of behaviours (e.g. deception, aggression and financial performance in firms). fWHR has also been linked to several factors that may be beneficial for sport (e.g. achievement drive, winning mentality and aggression). Despite this, few studies have examined the relationship between fWHR and sports performance, and these have focused on Caucasian sportsmen. Here, we investigated the relationship between fWHR and baseball performance in professional Japanese baseball players. We show that fWHR is positively related with home run performance across two consecutive seasons. The findings provide the first evidence linking fWHR to baseball performance and linking fWHR to behavioural outcomes in Asian participants.

日常生活中，面部是我们获取他人相关信息的核心渠道之一。现有研究已逐步证实，个体的面部宽高比（facial width-to-height ratio, fWHR）与多种行为表现存在显著关联，涵盖欺诈行为、攻击性以及企业财务绩效等场景。此外，面部宽高比还与多项有益于运动表现的特质相关，例如成就动机、求胜心态与攻击性。尽管如此，目前针对面部宽高比与运动表现之间关联的研究仍较为稀缺，且现有研究仅聚焦于白人运动员群体。本研究以日本职业棒球运动员为研究对象，探讨了面部宽高比与棒球运动表现之间的关联。研究结果显示，在连续两个赛季中，面部宽高比与本垒打表现呈显著正相关。本研究成果首次证实了面部宽高比与棒球运动表现的关联，同时也为亚洲人群中面部宽高比与行为结果的关联提供了首个实证依据。