Researchers finally find answers to whether couples start looking alike

Do people living together for many years start resembling each other after a point? This question has intrigued scientists and psychologists for years.

Researches have been conducting on this subject since the 1980s, yet the observation has never been scientifically confirmed or refuted.

Now researchers at Stanford University in the United States have thrown modern technology at the problem. Having analysed thousands of public photos of couples, they believe they can finally settle the matter.

Pin Pin Tea-makorn, a PhD student at Stanford University, along with Michal Kosinki, said the question of couples resembling each other had often intrigued them when they thought of looking at the facial features that change to align better with their partners’.

But rather than the faces changing, it was found that couples are inclined towards picking partners who have similar facial features as them.

Tea-makorn searched through Google, newspaper anniversary notices and genealogy websites for photos of couples taken at the start of their marriages and many years later. From these they compiled a database of pictures from 517 couples, taken within two years of tying the knot and between 20 and 69 years later.

The Stanford researchers then asked volunteers to look at a “target” face along with five other faces, one of which was that of their partners. The volunteers were then asked to note facial similarities among these faces.

The same was then done using facial recognition technology.

Although the researchers did not find any evidence to support the theory that facial features of couples changed over time to resemble each other, they concluded that people were more inclined towards picking partners who have similar facial features.

The new study stand in contradiction to earlier studies. In the original study in 1987, the late psychologist Robert Zajonc, at the University of Michigan, had volunteers rank the photos of only a dozen couples. He concluded that couples’ faces became more alike as their marriages went on, with the effect being greater the happier they were.