Your Name Can Literally Change the Way You Look.
We know that our names can affect almost every aspect of our lives: where welive , what school we enroll in , whatgrades we get, what jobs we choose, what jobs we get returned to , how far we get in those areas. vacancies that welove and where we donate . There is now evidence that our names can also influence how we look.
I’m talking about our real, literal faces. In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , researchers found that people can match names to the faces of strangers with surprising accuracy. Anne-Laure Cellier of the University of Paris-Saclay wrote about her team’s findings in The Conversation :
In eight studies, we found that participants showed ID-style photographs of people they had never met and were able to recognize the person’s name well above the likely level. For example, suppose you live in North America and you are shown a photograph of a woman named Emily (you are not given this information). Four possible names are listed under her picture: Claire, Deborah, Emily, and Melissa. Assuming that names are equally common in North America in and around a person’s year of birth, study participants should choose the correct name about 25% of the time – by chance. We found that participants typically choose the person’s real name 35-40% of the time. In other words, there is something about Emily that … just looks like Emily.
The theory is that when a child receives a name, it is already so loaded with stereotypes, good or bad. This social pressure puts pressure on the name bearers, influencing their perception of themselves and, in turn, the development of their appearance. So, for example, if you give your child a happy-sounding name – say Joy – they may develop certain facial features, such as certain smile lines, that match the stereotypes that culture has set for Joy. In the study, this so-called “name effect” did not occur when participants viewed photographs of people from a different culture.
In addition, only faces and hair were considered in the study. There is no guarantee that if you name your child Carmelo, he will make a killer jump shot.