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Subscribe to RSSLooking in the mirror, you probably see features from both of your parents (and possibly the milkman). Perhaps you have your father's eyes and nose, but your mother's ears and lips.
Scottish scientists have discovered that your face contains other subtle family clues -- your childhood socioeconomic status. Researchers found that to some degree people's early home life is detectable in their faces more than 70 years later.
In the study, published in the journal Economics and Human Biology, scientists looked at 292 older adults who participated in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921, a long-term research trial of Scottish children born in 1921 that tracks their health across a lifetime.
Researchers wanted to see if the participants, who were now octogenarians, showed traces of their early upbringing in the symmetry of their faces or their bodies.
To determine this, volunteers first completed questionnaires about their family's economic circumstances at age 11, including information about each parent's occupation, the number of family members living at home and sleeping in each room, and whether they had indoor plumbing. Participants were also asked about the job they held in middle age to determine the social class they attained as adults.
At age 83, they measured each person's facial symmetry from a photograph by comparing the left and right sides for 15 pairs of facial features, such as the positions of the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. More attractive people typically have more symmetrical faces and less facial symmetry may occur because of higher levels of stress, infections, toxins, or possibly genetic differences.
At age 87, researchers measured body symmetry at 14 locations, including finger lengths, ankle, wrist, and elbow widths, and height of the ears.
Scientists found a link between early life deprivation and facial -- but not body -- symmetry. This association, although weak, was stronger in men than in women.
Researchers suggest that early environmental factors, such as childhood nutrition, illness, and parent's smoking and alcohol habits, can affect a child's health and development by leaving a lasting impression on the face. Men with poorer beginnings tended to have more asymmetrical features in older age -- despite improving their social standing as adults.
"Our results show that symmetrical faces reflect better social and economic circumstances," says Timothy Bates, a professor of individual differences in psychology at the University of Edinburgh, and one of the study's co-authors. "But we don't know the specific elements of these desirable circumstances that lead to more symmetrical development," he adds.
Bates says the research team was surprised to find the influence of social status on symmetry was restricted to childhood, and that body symmetry was resilient to early life deprivation.
"We think this is because body symmetry is more reflective of processes that are protected in development, whereas the softer facial features are more plastic and reflect stress to a greater degree," Bates explains.
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What a gargantuan waste of time and money. Bet it was funded by government grants.
What a pointless comment.
The research is Scottish, though I am disappointed no American did it.
Yeah! What good did science ever do for anybody?!
Dust4 - What good has science ever done? You are joking, aren't you??? I mean, you do take antibiotics when you need to, don't you? Brush your teeth, wash your body, use deodorant, drive a car, ride a bus, wear cloth clothing, be warned about inclement weather, watch tv, and so on?
What good will this research do? I don't know, but I find it fascinating.
KRW - it's only a waste of time and money to you, because you have absolutely NO curiosity. I think it's fascinating and wish I could have participated.
I read this and at the end i was still as clueless as i was prior to reading it.
@rainlady
To clarify yes I was joking, of course. The italics were meant to imply sarcasm. I was wondering if anyone would take that comment seriously though.
I got the sarcasm, Dust4. I was disappointed that someone (KRW) would drag politics into this.
I wonder if they have this the right way around. Maybe poor people have facial asymmetry, maybe asymmetry causes poverty, beautiful people get rich.
I'm sorry, but unless they were measured for facial symmetry first while children, thus allowing for some manner of accurate comparison to a predicted outcome, I do not understand the validity of results gained from simply measuring their faces as adults.
Classic case of Junk Science. In short, we are to believe that if you're born with symmetrical features which, by definition, would classify you as "attractive", it's ALL downhill from there. Uh, guess what. . .it's ALWAYS downhill from there. we all show our age at different rates based on genetics, environmental & personal habits/factors and, yes, one would have to be sub-mental to think stress of all types doesn't play a role in the aging process. See! I solved that all on my own and needed not ONE $$$ in grant monies. Sheesh. . .NEXT!
So working in a factory or a coal mine as a child isn't good for your looks?
wow, what a waste of time.... Can't ya just ask? I'm sure people will just TELL you what kind of childhood they had... Or is this information going to be used to see if mummies had a bad childhood? Are these the scientists that are too dumb to try to find a cure for something or do anything that may benefit mankind at all?
If it is such a waste of time, why did you feel obligated to waste more time telling us it was a waste of time?
It's good research, actually. We are starting to gain a better understanding of the nature vs. nurture argument.
Hmmm.......maybe it is as simple as an adequate, soft mattress and pillow does wonders for the symmetry of a developing facial/head bone structure. Couple that with adequate parenting time...ie: being held by a mother who is not too occupied cleaning other people's houses to make financial ends meet, and thus not laying on an inadequate, thin playpen mattress all day as an infant/young child, and we may find the correlation of facial symmetry. Just a thought, but would seem to correlate with the findings relating to the facial structure only affected, and not the body. Since our skulls are softer and comprised of several non-fused bones at birth to allow for birth, cranial expansion and brain growth in all directions, head and face development would be more impacted by this, with inadequacy in care (due to economic/social stress factors) more likely to result in asymmetry than any effect on the long bones that make up the extremities and such of the body...as well as the body moves and slightly changes position even just with every breath and move of the chest wall.
An additional note...It would be interesting to know if the researchers took gestational age at birth into account in their findings.
Pre-term birth (even moderately pre-term such as 36-37 weeks gestation) has been shown to statistically correlate with lower socio-economic status, and pre-term infants have softer cranial bones and more open cranial suture lines, which would deem these infants to be more at risk / susceptable to post-birth non-symmetrical cranial/facial development.
So many variables... but Reason, Personal Observation, and now Science would seem to agree that early stressors, such as thin mattresses, malnutrition, iron skillets upside the head etc. would almost HAVE to affect one's facial symmetry into adulthood.
One odd thing I've noticed... Formally painted Portraits almost always look better than a 'formal' photograph. Of course, you're paying some guy to paint you as pleasingly as possible, adjusting the occasional eye-socket that runs up at an alarming angle or an ear on one side that looks, for all the world like your first set of chins. Art has been 'regularizing' our faces for Centuries.
I suppose people are paying folks that are great with PhotoShop, today...
Looks like one of my reports in high school. LOL. Did the journalist use double spacing just to make the article longer.
"Looking in the mirror, you probably see features from both of your parents (and possibly the milkman)."
Features from two parents AND possibly the milkman? Impossible, I think. But, no less a trampy statement
I believe it was meant tongue-in-cheek. You know, as a joke. I've seen much worse "jokes" on these threads.
This just in, people breathe air in through their lungs to stay alive.
Four, six,three That made my morning, that was some funny @!$%# . I just about busted my sides laughing.
Whatever, my husband didn't have a lot growing up and he has a very symmetrical face and is generally thought to be very good looking by just about anyone who ever has seen him.
Oh yeah and both his parents and his grandparents all smoked like freight trains around him since his birth.
There's a difference between anecdotes and statistics. Your husband, as a single person, may very well fall outside of the "majority of the people who ______" that scientific studies have calculated. That doesn't render the study invalid.
There's this great science called "phrenology", which says that you can measure a person's intelligence and trustworthiness by the shape of his or her skull! Isn't science wonderful?
Actually, Phrenology is Junk Science, and was from it's inception. Interesting hypothesis, until you start measuring heads, and discover that most of your pet notions are wildly wrong, most of the time.
Phrenology really had a very short period of popularity. Most of the china "phrenology heads" you see around are either reproductions, or (if old) simple give-aways from what amounted to Big Pharm, ca.1880s. If you collect Antique Pharmacy Jars, you'd love to have an old one.
probably themost intelligent post on the subject. One exception - pre term birth corrolates to multiples, not necessarily lower socio-economic status.
I think it is the variables that often accompany lower socio-economic status that lead to a higher incidence of pre-term births to this group, however this lower socio-economic group does statistically have a higher incidence of pre-term births. Maybe I did not state that well enough.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/premature-birth/DS00137/DSECTION=risk-factors
http://www.medicosecuador.com/english/health_articles/365.htm
Perhaps some of us has some asymmetry because our faces are shaped like our parents. No one has totally symmetrical features, although some more than others.
oh, yea and were ellen barkin and bryan williams deprived as children. no indoor privy maybe?
Well, really!!! We all know that people embellish one way or the other for one reason or another. Consequently, the questionaire. But here's the hitch. More and more men and women are getting cosmetic face lifts, etc., even in their very senior years. How does that impact the study?
This has got to be one of the most wasteful studies I have EVER read about!!!!!!!!!!People look like they do because of GENES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!so stupid to even remotely suggest a person's face is not symmetrical because of their LESS THAN PERFECT economic childhood...ARRRGGHHH
@ Jean
Genes are not the only thing that determines what you look like or how you develop. Environmental and other factors play a role too. That was the point of this study. I should know since I am an identical twin (whose genes are identical) and I do not look exactly the same as my brother.
BTW,,,,Identical Twins DO NOT have Identical Genes...
You missed my point,,I do not believe the study....I think it might be a coincidence if some asymmetrical faces had poor economic childhoods,etc.
@ Jean
Ok. I'm assuming what your referring to is either epigenetic differences that occur from environmental factors over time that allow the expression of genes for certain phenotypes or maybe your referring to differences due to copy-number variations by which multiple copies of the same gene occur. The latter of those two technically would have differences between identical twins genes while the former has more to do with what I was saying previously. That being said identical twins genes are virtually identical.
Anyway, I got your point. My point was that this study was an attempt to find evidence for that nature vs. nurture debate while yours was that this study was a waste of time.
You are correct in noting that the media commonly attributes correlation with causation and this does seem to be the case here as well.
In particular this line bothered me:
The writer is saying that there is definitely an influence which is not what the writers of the study were saying.
The best that these researchers can say is that this study suggests a link between early socioeconomic status and facial symmetry. In that sense it was not wasteful, but a useful gathering of evidence to support a certain hypothesis.
Jean you need to go take some courses before you start yelling. Ever see a man with a big red bulbous nose? Yeah he's a drunk. Just 1 example of how your lifestyle or environment can change your appearance.
I don't know...a sledgehammer works wonders on the shape of a person's face. Maybe it's more likely that poor people get hit in the head with a sledgehammer, thus accentuating their facial asymmetry.
Come on, get rid of the junk science, puh-leeze.
This is excellent science, too bad so many Americans can barely spell science much less understand that it often takes tons of little studies like this to make important scientific advances. The ramifications are very interesting because basically it is saying that rich people are better looking. Since it has been proven that better looking people tend to get better jobs and promotions, you can see there are all sorts of things that could all be affected by this study.
Lets see, what come to mind when I read this article? Oh! I know, BULL@!$%#!
this article only proved to me that I am an idiot for not only reading the article, but for also reading comments and then posting this.
what a waste of time, but i have no one to blame but myself.
Wow. Anyone with half a brain and a pair of eyes knows that the better off your parents are, the more likely you'll be good lookiing. Why? It's simple: men will always marry the most beautiful woman they can get. Men with more money get better-looking women, and out come better-looking babies (unless you're Christie Brinkley's daughter who unfortunately came out looking just like Billy Joel. But there are always exceptions).
@Ed
What you're saying might be true, but how can you be sure? And if what you say is true how can you know there aren't others factors in play? That's the whole point of studies like these, to gather empirical evidence to support certain hypotheses. Relying on self-evident axioms can only get you so far. This is one of the main reasons the modern scientific method was developed.
That thar iz stoopit. its not wut jeebus wunted when he founded maaaarka. i just knows our tax muney wuz spent on this. i coulda used this muney in my welfair chek to buy more guns...drrrrrrr
I am from a middle class family that smoked, drank and did illicit drugs. I know that we were not an abnormality, there were a lot of my parents friends who did the same. I do think that I have a little more aging to my face, although I don't know about asymmetry, but what I believe is that it from the stress of being raised in an environment like that and then having to work hard to get over the effects of it over many years of my adulthood. However, that being said, you are not going to attain the very high levels of this society if you are not pretty, just a fact.