Social Proof

In searching for an explanation for the 'good face', I came across a couple of interesting explanations such as positive framing bias, the halo effect, and this a cool wikipedia entry on social proof, select excerpts:

Recently, in April 2007, the Washington Post convinced a famous violin virtuoso to play in the Washington DC subway during the morning rush hour. So he took his $3.5 million Stradivarius violin and played. Almost no one noticed or stopped to listen. He collected a total of $32 for an hour of playing (not counting a $20 bill that was given by a person who recognized him). This is a wonderful example of the power of social proof.

Social value of unfamiliar people is ambiguous and requires a lot of effort to assess accurately. Given limited time and motivation, other people will often evaluate others based on how surrounding people behave towards them. For example, if a man is perceived to be in a company of attractive women, or is associated with them, then his perceived social value and attractiveness will be perceived to be greater. The implied cognition in this case would be "All those girls seem to really like him, there must be something about him that's high value".

Similarly, a person who is in high demand - for example a CEO - may continue to get many attractive job offers and can as a result extract a considerable wage premium - even if his/her objective performance has been poor. When people appear successful, potential employers and others who evaluate them tend to search more intensively for virtues or positive characteristics that are "congruent" with or explain the person's success, and to ignore or under-estimate the person's faults.

People who experience positive social proof may also benefit from a halo effect and other attributes are deemed to be more positive than they actually are.

Aha! We might be on to something after all!