Study: Faces Like Our Parents Seem Most Attractive

June 28 -- Look carefully at the face of your partner. Remind you of anyone else you know?

According to recent studies you might be seeing traces of yourself — or your mother or father.

Unlike what the old saying "opposites attract" suggests, cognitive scientist David Perrett of St. Andrews University in Scotland has found the reverse is more often true. His studies show the faces we find most attractive are appealing because they look like our own.

"Our results showed that faces similar to the participant were more attractive than faces dissimilar to the participant," said Perrett.

Love Thyself or Thy Genes?

Could this be narcissism? Possibly. Or researchers suggest it may be a natural instinct to pair with people who resemble our parents. Perrett says this could be an unconscious means of keeping successful family gene pools small.

Inbreeding is usually considered an unhealthy idea since it can trap flawed genes in a small gene pool. But some suggest a certain level of inbreeding can be beneficial.

"Going after someone with a resemblance may make sense since your family has already made it through an evolutionary niche," he says.

To test whether people are attracted to others who look like themselves, Perrett asked 30 male and female students to participate in a survey. As each person arrived at the test location, someone took his or her picture. Later, each person was asked to rate a group faces of the opposite sex in terms of attractiveness. Results showed that each person consistently found one face among the group particularly more attractive than the others.

Little did they know it was their own.

In each group of pictures, Perrett had included a version of the subject's face that had been changed to the opposite sex. He and his colleagues used a special computer program to feminize or masculinize the face in the photograph of each person. They then hid key characteristics like hairstyle, earrings and clothing. None of the subjects recognized any of the faces as their own.