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信息的核心途径之一。近期研究开始揭示，个体的面部宽高比（facial width-to-height ratio，fWHR）与多种行为特征存在关联，例如欺诈行为、攻击性以及企业中的财务表现。此外，面部宽高比还与多项有助于运动表现的特质相关，如成就动机、胜负欲与攻击性。尽管已有上述研究基础，但目前鲜有探讨面部宽高比与运动表现之间关联的研究，且现有相关研究均以白人运动员为对象。本研究针对日本职业棒球运动员，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之间的关联，同时也是首个在亚洲参与者中揭示面部宽高比与行为结果相关的证据。