长得不好看?可能是因为你的名字没取好

Researchers led by Dr Ruth Mayo and PhD candidate Yonat Zwebner at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem examined whether a person's appearance can be influenced by their given name. 耶路撒冷希伯来大学的博士Ruth Mayo和博士候选人Yonat Zwebner带领研究人员研究了一个人的外表是否会受到名字的影响。

To do this, they recruited independent observers and showed them color headshot photographs of complete strangers. Then they presented a list of names to the observers and asked them to choose the stranger's real name based on his or her facial appearance. 为此，他们招募了独立观察员，并向观察员们展示完全陌生的彩色人物头像照片。观察员被要求根据照片中人物的样貌，从名单中选择出陌生人的真实名字。

Beat the odds of correctly guessing a person's name

In a series of studies (now reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology), the observers repeatedly beat the odds of correctly identifying a person's name based on their facial appearance alone. 在《人格与社会心理学》杂志所刊载的一系列研究中，观察员只依据面部表现来识别名字的正确率多次超过理论上的概率值。

For example, upon looking at the face and considering four possible names — Jacob, Dan, Josef or Nathaniel — observers correctly chose "Dan" 38 percent of the time, significantly above the 25 percent chance level of a random guess. 例如，观察员观察面部，并在四个可能的名字(Jacob、Dan、Josef、Nathaniel)中做出选择。观察员在38%的情况下能够选出正确答案Dan，明显高于随机猜测的25%的概率。

This effect held true even when the researchers controlled for age and ethnicity. 即使研究员控制了年龄和民族这两个因素，上述结果依然成立。

"Our research demonstrates that indeed people do look like their name," said Dr Ruth Mayo, senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Furthermore, we suggest this happens because of a process of self-fulfilling prophecy, as we become what other people expect us to become." 希伯来大学的高级讲师Ruth Mayo博士称，“我们的研究表明，人们确实看起来像自己的名字。此外，我们认为其原因在于自我应验预言，因为我们会成为他人期待我们成为的人。”

Name stereotypes

Supporting the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the researchers found that observers beat the odds of correctly guessing a person's name even when they were only allowed to see their hairstyle. This suggests that people may choose the hairstyle that fits a stereotype associated with their name. 研究人员的发现支持自我应验预言概念。当观察员只能通过发型猜测人名时，猜出人名的实际正确率依然高于理论上的概率值。这表明人们可能会选择符合其名字刻板印象的发型。

The researchers confirmed that observers in a second country and culture were also able to beat the odds. However while observers were good at matching faces to names in their own culture, they were not good at doing so in a foreign culture. This supports the idea that name stereotypes are important when matching faces with names. 研究人员证实，来自另一个国家和文化的观察员猜出人名的实际正确率也能高于理论概率值。虽然观察员们善于将面孔与自己文化中的名字正确匹配，但他们并不善于在异国文化中这样做。这证明了名字的刻板印象在面孔与名字配对时很重要。

The researchers also found that observers are less good at guessing the given name of people who use a nickname exclusively. This indicates that a person's appearance is affected by their name only if they use it, and not if it simply appears on a birth certificate. 研究人员还发现，观察员不太能猜对那些只使用昵称的人的真实名字。这表明一个人的外表只有在他使用真实名字时才受其影响；如果他的真实名字只是出现在出生证明上（生活中并不使用），那么他的外表并不会被名字所影响。

In one study, the researchers completely removed the human factor from the matching process. 在一项研究中，研究人员完全剔除了人为因素对配对过程造成的影响。

Using a computerized paradigm, they found that computers were able to beat the odds when asked to choose the correct name for 94,000 different faces. This further supports the idea that our faces contain relevant information related to our names. 研究人员使用计算机模型进行实验，发现计算机从94000张不同面孔中选出正确名字的实际几率高于理论概率值。这进一步支持了长相包含与名字相关的信息这一看法。

"We are familiar with similar processes from other stereotypes like race and gender, where many times the stereotypical expectations of others affect who we become. We hypothesize that there are similar stereotypes about names, including how someone with a specific name looks, and these expectations really do affect our facial appearance," said Dr Mayo from the Hebrew University. Mayo博士表示：“我们对种族、性别等刻板印象的形成过程比较熟悉。很多时候，别人的刻板期待会影响我们成为怎样的人。我们假设名字也存在着类似的刻板印象，其中包括：具有特定某个名字的人相貌如何、这些期望如何真实地影响我们的面部表现。“

Social structuring

According to the researchers, the possibility that our name can influence our look, even to a small extent, suggests the important role of social structuring in the complex interaction between the self and society. 根据研究人员的说法，我们的名字会影响我们的外表（即使是在较小的程度上），说明了社会建构在自我与社会的复杂互动中发挥重要作用。

The research suggests that we are subject to social structuring from the minute we are born, not only by our gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, but also by the simple choice that others make in giving us our name. 研究表明，从我们出生的那一刻起，我们就不断地受到社会建构的影响，不仅仅是受性别、民族和社会经济地位的影响，还受别人为我们取名时做出的简单选择的影响。

Future research could examine the precise nature of the mechanism leading to the emergence of this face-name matching effect, for example how a person's name matches his or her face at different stages of life. 未来的研究可能关注于导致面孔与名字之间的产生匹配效应的机制的确切属性，例如：一个人的名字如何在生命的不同阶段与面孔相匹配。

Another question worth exploring is why some people have a very high face-name match while others have a low match. 另一个问题值得探讨得问题是：为什么有些人的面孔和名字匹配率非常高，而另一些人的匹配率则很低。

Source: eurekalert.org Editor: Zhang Xi Intern: Zhong Wenxing

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