As we watch couples walking up and down the streets, many people will begin to wonder why those that are dating for a long time begin to look so much like each other. It may seem hard to gather, but many studies have been done that actually show that married couples that are together for over 25 years begin to look alike. The study I decided to focus on was conducted by Robert Zajonc, a psychologist at the University of Michigan. Before I get into the study, I want to just discuss some of the ideas that this psychologist shared about the aging and how it effects how those that are in the relationships. He explains that the more happiness that a couple shares together over their years dating will provide for an increase in how much their faces change to look more alike. Furthermore, he claims that these facial structure changes are made due to the decades of emotions that these humans will share with each other. To prove his claims he designed a study which consisted of numerous photographs of couples. He designed it so that everyone is of the same ethnicity and the backgrounds of all the photos would be blacked out, so the only thing that those observing the photos would see is the face of the individuals. People would be given pictures of a large amount of random faces and were told to match those with the people who they thought they were married to. The randomized control trial comes with a twist in that 24 of the pictures are of people when they were first married, and the other 24 pictures are of the same people after they have been married for 25 years. To make the test even harder for those that are matching the pictures, all of the couples are of the same ethnicity.
The study found what was expected, those that were matching the photographs were able to match the older couples rather than when they were younger and just getting married. The matchers explained that the changes in faces were not extreme, but certainly enough to see who matched with who. Whether it be a subtle wrinkle change, there was always something that those who matched had in common. Dr. Zajonc has some great explanations that show why the results shown may happen. Similar diets are a reason as to why over the years couples faces will start to show the same wrinkles, and other facial structures. Eating the same kinds of foods will make the fatty tissues in their bodies do the same thing, and thus develop in the same ways making them look similar. He explains that this is certainly not the largest probability, and another way to explain this is that over the years, couples will mimic the facial expressions that their lovers will make, and this will make wrinkles produce in the same areas on the face. This proposition can be backed up with a study done by Olaf Dimberg, a psychologist in Sweden. Volunteers would look at photographs of people showing many different emotions, and when, for example, they saw a happy face, the muscles in their faces would mimic the smile.
It is very interesting to look at these studies and realize that as couples age they do in fact start to look like each other, and science can back this up.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/11/science/long-married-couples-do-look-alike-study-finds.html
Nice blog! It is really amazing and the result of the study really surprised me! I have also found that many couples look alike. But I also notice that there are still couples look alike even if they just be together for only one year. This is different from the result of the study. I have heard that most of the people are narcissistic, which means that the people they think are nice-looking are usually look alike like them. It is hard to explain it but someone do insist this idea. As what we learn in class, correlation does not equal to causation. Maybe it is not couples stay together for a long that leads them look alike, it is probably they look alike and the attraction between them make them together. Your topic is really interesting and it makes me wonder more! I have also found someone else discussing this idea, you may want to read them.
Very interesting topic. There is a phrase in China called “Marriage Face”, which means people who get married looks alike. Some parents even judge the forth going of a relationship by looking the other party’s picture, chances are that they may have their best wishes to them if he or she and their kids looks alike. I was wondering why people in a relationship would looks like alike for a while and could not understand what is the causation to this till reading your article.
The emotion theory seems very convincing to me. As matter of fact that I looked though websites and found out that there are several studies are backing up this theory. Not surprisingly they mentioned the same causation: facial muscle. When two identities are in relationship they share each others emotions, and when the other party expressed his or her facial expression the other person memorize that snap and will most likely express the similar expression in the future. After a long time the facial muscles will remember that and gets wrinkles on both of those couples face.
Actually after reading your post I think it is more precise to call it a “Aging face” instead of a “Marriage Face”. Since it only grows over time and studies I found indicates that marriage does not increase the chance of two couple getting looks similar to each other.
I’m wondering if there is any other psychological factors influencing this. Such as if couples are wearing alike outfits, would create a scene to us that they “looked” alike. But I could not find any related article with the limited time allowance.
http://www.lehmiller.com/blog/2012/11/7/why-do-romantic-partners-tend-to-look-alike.html