A woman’s face reveals her persona

Glasgow, February 17: Scientists from the University of Glasgow have found that the face of a woman is the road map of her mind, a rough sketch of her persona revealing her personality and destiny.

A study undertaken by Richard Wiseman, from England's University of Hertfordshire, and Rob Jenkins, from Glasgow University in Scotland, was aimed at understanding self-assessed personality characteristics.

The experiment was designed to interpret the shape of the face and facial features to derive inferences about one’s personality. For this purpose, around 1000 New Scientist readers were asked to submit photographs of themselves. They were further asked to rate how the four traits of humor, trust, piousness and luck applied to their personality.

The photographs were then blended electronically to make several composite images. Dr Jenkins said, "We wanted to know whether people would be able to identify the personalities of the individuals behind the images.”

More than 6,500 visitors of the New Scientist web site were asked to identify traits that matched with the faces. In a startling revelation, it was observed that the lucky women were identified 70 percent of the time. Their perception of a religious woman was also accurate 73 percent of the time.

Identifying the trustworthiness trait was a trifle lower at 54 percent but then according to the researchers it was "statistically significant". The only female composites that were off the mark were where the women assessed themselves as humorous. In a sharp contrast, none of the male composites was correctly identified.

Dr Jenkins felt the reason for the disparity in the findings maybe that the male participants were less perceptive and dishonest when assessing their personalities. On the other hand, perhaps the women were more thoughtful when selecting the photographs they submitted.

However, it is ambiguous for the researchers as to why it is easier to decipher the personality traits from a woman’s face, but not from a man’s.

Professor Richard Wiseman stated that 'It's possibly that female faces are more informative and expressive in some way than male ones. They may be more open and tend to wear their hearts on their sleeve so it becomes easier to read their personality.”

Summing up the study Dr Jenkins declared that "Overall the data is fascinating. It pushes the envelope in that we are looking at subtle aspects of psychological make-up. It also shows that people readily associate facial appearance with certain personality traits. It's possible that there is some correlation between appearance and personality because both are influenced by our genetic make-up."