Seriously, though. As I get older, I am starting to think there might actually be a strong correlation between how people look and act. What I don't know for sure is which is first. Some is obviously nature bur nurture is obviously a thing, too.
Seriously, though. As I get older, I am starting to think there might actually be a strong correlation between how people look and act. What I don't know for sure is which is first. Some is obviously nature bur nurture is obviously a thing, too.
Domestication syndrome seems to suggest a link. [1]
A largely related example of this is smell [1]. I'm not referencing that particular study so much as the million other studies it also references and mentions early on. Our conscious appreciation of smell doesn't really reach much greater depth than "eww" or "aww", but there's a dramatically larger amount of subconscious processing that we do to come to that conclusion. For one fun example, men subconsciously rate the perceived attractiveness of a woman, based on a blind shirt sniff test, significantly higher when she is ovulating. Again, it's evolution baby. [2]
As a random thought, this also goes some way to explaining the uncanny valley. When the pieces don't fit together into a coherent whole, the brain simply rejects the lot of it.
[1] - https://cognitiveresearchjournal.springeropen.com/articles/1...
I think the way people act influences the way their appearance is perceived in very subtle ways. A sketchy liar could have exactly the same bone structure as an honest man, but the sketchy liar will be perceived as less honest due to almost imperceptible differences in body language, the way they hold their facial muscles, etc. The result of these subtle differences can be detected with a vague sensation of "this guy is sketchy, he's probably about to lie to me."
Also I think there is an element of truth to the old wive's tail of "your face is going to get stuck like that". People who frequently have malicious facial expressions in private will find themselves having malicious facial expressions when they don't mean to, when interacting with the people they intend to deceive. Maybe out of pure habit, or maybe because those muscles are just getting more exercise. Somebody who often has a lopsided smirk will develop muscles on one side of their face more than the other, and eventually they can't help but to smirk by default.
I've heard wearing eyeglasses is correlated to intelligence (though I assume weakly).