Facial Resemblance in Engaged and Married Couples

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Abstract
This study investigates the commonsense view that 'people tend to marry people who look like themselves'. Various explanations of the observation of facial resemblance were considered by having younger and older raters judge the degree of facial similarity among pairs of photographs representing either actual couples, or randomly paired same age individuals of the opposite sex. The results suggest that the observation of facial resemblance among couples appears to reflect a real phenomenon. It was observed by both young and old, and in new as well as older marital relationships. The study provided no supportfor environmental co-existence, perceptual bias, or matching hypotheses as explanations for this facial resemblance. However, the results are consistent with an explanation based on the repeated mere exposure hypothesis, suggesting that through repeated exposure to their own face and to the faces of others genetically similar to themselves, individuals develop an attraction to faces similar to their own.

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