Why do some couples look alike? Science has two explanations
It seems the age-old belief that married couples look alike might actually be true. Here we look at two possibilities, according to science.
You look like each other to begin with
It’s no secret that most people marry someone who has similar characteristics to them – like religion, age, race, education, income and body type. It’s not difficult to understand why that’s the case but scientists have also found we’re attracted to people who look like ourselves or our parents. In a 2010 study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, participants were shown pictures of strangers which were preceded by a short glimpse of either their parent or a stranger. Participants who saw the glimpse of their parent before the target picture were more likely to assign higher ratings of attractiveness to the person in the target picture.In a second experiment, a picture of the stranger was morphed together with a picture of the participants themselves or a picture of another stranger. The study participants rated the portrait of the amalgamation of a stranger and themselves as more attractive than the other.
Another 2013 study, published in Psychological Science, found that we tend to trust people who look similar to us. The scientists from the Royal Holloway University note “our perceptions of similarity between us and others extend beyond objective physical characteristics, into the specific nature of social interactions that we have.” In other words, it’s a way for us to monitor genetic relatedness and “evidence of trust in others also serves as a cue to kinship.”
You share the same experiences
In a landmark 1987 study of “facial likeness”, psychologist Robert Zajonc of the University of Michigan, asked participants to match photographs of men and women based on their facial similarity. Two dozen of the photographs were of couples when first married and another two dozen were of the same couples 25 years later. The study participants found only a chance similarity between the young couples but saw definite resemblances when couples had been married a quarter of a century. In many cases the similarities were not dramatic – some involved subtle shifts in facial wrinkles and other facial contours – but they were marked enough that the participants were able to match husband and wife more often when they were older than when they were newlyweds. Zajonc’s study also found couples with the happiest marriages had the greatest facial resemblance.
Zajonc proposed that a long life together of shared experiences shaped the face. He believed people, often unconsciously, mimic the facial expressions of their husband or wife, in empathy and that over the years of sharing the same expression, their faces would look similar. For example, if one partner often smiles in a particular way, the other is likely to unconsciously mimic it which would create similar patterns of lines and alterations of muscles on the face.