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“As you say, you can’t spoil it” – a Lithuanian folk proverb says. However, it seems that you can “spoil” it – a new study shows that a person’s name can affect his or her appearance in the long run.
Although the researchers’ conclusions may sound a bit speculative, there is solid science behind them. The study used artificial intelligence that can analyze large amounts of data and test how people perceive each other.
Scientists have found that adults can match their faces to their names much more accurately than people thought.
However, because this effect did not occur in children’s faces, the study authors believe that face name recognition ability develops with age rather than starting at birth.
This so-called “self-fulfilling prophecy” shows how expectations subtly influence a person’s appearance, thereby demonstrating the interplay between social factors and identity formation.
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a psychological phenomenon in which a belief or expectation about a particular event or situation leads to behavior that ultimately causes that event or situation to actually occur.
The person’s name and appearance
When no one knew what we would look like when we grew up, we were given a name that would most likely stay with us for the rest of our lives.
What if your appearance, especially your face, somehow reflected the name you were given at birth?
The debate about this and about stereotypes has been going on for a long time – are some human characteristics innate and inherited, or are they formed under the influence of social expectations?
While it is relatively easy to identify genetic influences, isolating and empirically measuring environmental influences is much more difficult.
However, the authors of a new study published in the journal PNAS present results that demonstrate the significant impact society has on human life.
Professor Ruth Maggio of the Hebrew University and researchers at the Reichman University’s Allison School of Business found that the influence is so strong that it can even change a person’s appearance.
“Our research, which combined human perception tests with advanced machine learning techniques, provides new insights into the complex relationship between social desirability and the development of self-identity. It turns out we are a lot like our names.”
Based on previous findings that adults’ faces may match their names more closely than previously thought, Professor Maggio’s team wanted to determine whether this odd correspondence was present from birth or developed as people age.
so..?
Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem conducted a groundbreaking psychology experiment in which they asked children aged 9 to 10 and adults to associate faces with names.
Results showed that both children and adults correctly matched the adult faces to their corresponding names, but when it came to the children’s faces and names, the participants were unable to make accurate associations.
In another part of the study, the machine learning system was fed a large database of facial images. The AI found that the faces of adults with the same name in the photos were significantly more similar than the faces of people with different names.
However, no significant similarities were found between children with the same name.
Several trends emerged during the study period.
Both adults and children were able to accurately match the adult’s face to his or her name.
Neither adults nor children could do this with images of children’s faces.
Even when the faces of these young people were digitally aged to look like adults, participants were no better than chance in guessing their names – suggesting that a person’s facial appearance changes after childhood to better match their name.
The AI found that the faces of adults with the same name in photos were more similar than the faces of people with different names.
Sample testing. Photo courtesy of pbs.twimg.com
The results are no accident
So no matter how crazy the researchers’ conclusions may seem, each person’s face can actually be shaped by their name.
It turns out that Darius really looks like Darius, Aušra looks like Aušra, etc.
“We did more than a dozen studies, and each time we worried that this time it might not work, but we did it anyway. It was amazing.”
J. Zwebner
Scientists have concluded there is a link between your name and your appearance.
“Taken together, these studies suggest that facial appearance reflects society’s expectations of what a person with a particular name should look like. Thus, ‘social symbols’ like names can influence a person’s appearance,” the article reads.
The mechanism is not yet fully understood
But how exactly do names shape our faces? According to this research, there are several possible options.
First, your personality will be affected by the stereotypes associated with your name and how people treat you, which can actually affect your face.
This can happen, for example, when a person with a bad temper tenses their facial muscles more than someone who is more relaxed. This can lead to the development of a lower jaw and, therefore, a certain type of face shape.
Other factors could be genetic influences from parents or how a person styles their hair, which is one of the parts of their facial image that people have the most control over.
Notably, people in the study were the most correct at identifying culturally appropriate names and faces.
For example, the Jewish and French participants in the experiment were better at matching names and faces from their own cultural group than from each other’s.
“We have shown that the social environment is so powerful that it can influence an individual’s appearance,” the researchers concluded.
Humans and AI pushed the limits of probability in identifying names that matched faces, and the results supported the team’s hypothesis that faces do reflect names. Or, as the study explains, “…we believe that our facial features change over time and eventually begin to conform to people’s expectations of what we should look like.”
The findings suggest that as we mature, we tend to change our appearance to better match our namesakes – whether that’s hairstyle, make-up, glasses, earrings or even facial expressions.
However, not all scientists agree with the conclusions of their Israeli colleagues.
Keti Mondlok of Brock University in Canada told reporters she would like to conduct more research.
She wanted to make sure other factors, such as the unpopularity of other variations of the name, didn’t affect it.
Regardless, the researchers’ findings may make parents think twice before naming their children, especially names with exotic cultural or other meanings.
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