Changing the narrative: stories reduce biases against anomalous faces

Facial anomalies, such as scars, are often linked to an “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype, in which people with visible differences are seen as less warm or less moral. We developed the “Normalizing Anomalies with Mobile Exposure” (NAME) intervention based on the idea that repeated exposure and narratives can shift automatic evaluations of others. In a between-subjects design, one group of participants was repeatedly exposed to faces with visible anomalies paired with narratives describing morally praiseworthy actions, while a second group viewed phenotypically typical faces of people of color paired with the same type of narratives. Each group completed two daily sessions for five consecutive days via a mobile application. Across both versions of the intervention, implicit evaluations of the targeted faces became more positive over time, with the anomalous faces version showing the clearest target-specific improvement. Explicit attitudes did not change. These findings suggest that exposure-based storytelling can alter automatic evaluations of individuals with facial anomalies and may offer a promising, scalable approach to reducing stigma associated with visible differences, although further research is needed to test durability and generalizability to other groups.