There ’s an explanation for why you and your best friend can never check on whether a amorous sake is hot or homely .
harmonize to a new study , it ’s our life experiences — not a perfectly cheat jaw or sultry sleeping accommodation optic — that make a person ’s face appeal to us . Sure , symmetrical characteristic are generally more attractive than non - symmetrical ones , but an even expression only partially accounts for someone ’s overall “ attractiveness , ” investigator find . After that , our taste perception can change dramatically .
The two - part study , published this week in the journalCurrent Biology , asked 35,000 multitude to visit a website , where they were asked to rate faces for attractiveness . The resulting data showed thatmost individuals agreedonly one-half of the time .
Was this because genetics and environment influence our perceptions of forcible beauty ? In the cogitation ’s second one-half , researcher study the facial preferences of 547 distich of superposable twins and 214 pairs of same - sex biovular similitude . Sure enough , brotherly twins — who spring up up in the same households yet partake in 50 percent of the same genes — ended up disagreeing on standards of attractiveness . However , the identical twins were also “ really , really different from each other in their facial esthetic preferences , ” one of the composition ’s lead researchers , Jeremy Wilmer of Wellesley College , toldTime .
In short , physical attractive feature is highly personal — even among relations who ’ve had similar bringing up . investigator chalk up the differences to our own discrete biography experiences , which can vary wide thanks to co - workers , peers , past relationships , and medium exposure .
If experience influence attraction , then whattypesof experience make us prefer one face to another ? The theme did n’t mensurate this , but researchers think it has to do with positive associations , as bailiwick lead author Laura Germine , of Massachusetts General Hospital , toldTime . If you ’ve had good experiences with people who have certain facial characteristics , you ’ll most likely find them attractive . As time passes , others who expect like them will seem good - looking to you as well .
[ h / tTime ]
