New Scientist reports your facial structure determines how others perceive you — from their dominance over you to their trustworthiness. It’s an idea that goes back to the ancient Greeks. And it’s a case of perception is reality: the study of physiognomy has re-emerged in psychology circles.
How your looks betray your personality (click for larger view)
It’s believed we’re hard-coded to make split decisions about a stranger — for safety’s sake. Thousands of years later, it’s evolved into politicians with “competent” looking faces, doctors having “baby faces” and dominant looking men rising quickly through the ranks from foot soldier to general.
Support for this, and the kernel of truth idea, has come from a study of 90 ice-hockey players published late last year by Justin Carré and Cheryl McCormick of Brock University in Ontario, Canada. They found that a wider face in which the cheekbone-to-cheekbone distance was unusually large relative to the distance between brow and upper lip was linked in a statistically significant way with the number of penalty minutes a player was given for violent acts including slashing, elbowing, checking from behind and fighting.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, vol 275, p 2651
The article also explains why we find attractive people “easy on the eyes.” Early in our development, ugly people were likely diseased or suffered from a genetic anomaly — leading us to avoid them in favour of those who may swim in a deeper gene pool.
Ultimately, our faces (built by testosterone levels) help determine who we become — a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. As the world reacts to the way we look, it moulds us into becoming how the world perceives us.
Source: How your looks betray your personality, New Scientist
Leave a Reply
One’s first impression may not be under your control
New Scientist reports your facial structure determines how others perceive you — from their dominance over you to their trustworthiness. It’s an idea that goes back to the ancient Greeks. And it’s a case of perception is reality: the study of physiognomy has re-emerged in psychology circles.
How your looks betray your personality (click for larger view)
It’s believed we’re hard-coded to make split decisions about a stranger — for safety’s sake. Thousands of years later, it’s evolved into politicians with “competent” looking faces, doctors having “baby faces” and dominant looking men rising quickly through the ranks from foot soldier to general.
Support for this, and the kernel of truth idea, has come from a study of 90 ice-hockey players published late last year by Justin Carré and Cheryl McCormick of Brock University in Ontario, Canada. They found that a wider face in which the cheekbone-to-cheekbone distance was unusually large relative to the distance between brow and upper lip was linked in a statistically significant way with the number of penalty minutes a player was given for violent acts including slashing, elbowing, checking from behind and fighting.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, vol 275, p 2651
The article also explains why we find attractive people “easy on the eyes.” Early in our development, ugly people were likely diseased or suffered from a genetic anomaly — leading us to avoid them in favour of those who may swim in a deeper gene pool.
Ultimately, our faces (built by testosterone levels) help determine who we become — a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. As the world reacts to the way we look, it moulds us into becoming how the world perceives us.
Source: How your looks betray your personality, New Scientist
About the author
See what else Michael has written about on the topics of Ancient Greeks, Brock University, dominance, face, hockey, New Scientist, physiognomy, Psychology, trust.
Loading ...
