Is face typing scientific?

[Lily flower]

There's a woman on youtube and the internet who claims you can understand a person's character from their physical characteristics. For instance, if you can see the whites of their eyes underneath their irises when you are standing level with them, they are likely to be very psychologically disturbed. According to her, 20% of serial killers have this attribute.

This seems dangerous and appealing at the same time. Does anyone know if there is any scientific evidence to back this up?

 

[wildcat]

There's a woman on youtube and the internet who claims you can understand a person's character from their physical characteristics. For instance, if you can see the whites of their eyes underneath their irises when you are standing level with them, they are likely to be very psychologically disturbed. According to her, 20% of serial killers have this attribute.

This seems dangerous and appealing at the same time. Does anyone know if there is any scientific evidence to back this up?

Please.

 

[Nicodemus]

I guess it is on a par with astrology, a little less scientific than MB typing.

 

[wolfy]

I'm thinking it maybe isn't so scientific.

 

[Turtledove]

Pseudo-scientific in my opinion. Anyone that can back it up, we'll listen.

 

[Glycerine]

The sad truth is that we aren't aware of the majority of the serial killers, past and present. The police only get them through chance and circumstance. There are probably a few serial killers active currently. So I call bullshit. It's slightly less scientific as avoiding middle-aged, middle class, single, white males in order to not get killed.

 

[Anew Leaf]

I guess it is on a par with astrology, a little less scientific than MB typing.

This.

 

[Santosha]

I'd go with no simply because there are identical twins that test as very different personalities, though sometimes certain traits and temperment can be found. How would it account for that? It seemed that a while back I was reading through identical twin studies and there was a large correlation to one of the twins being right brain dom and the other being left. Anyhow, ya I thing face typing is probably BS. Ofcourse you might look at a fat face and guess someone likes to eat, or a face with excessive acne and guess that someone is self conscious. =P

 

[Andy]

Well, hormones leave a mark on a persons pysiology, as can drugs... but overall I'm not convinced that even knowing a person has high testosterone levels (or whatever) automatically opens up a window letting you look at their soul.

 

[sulfit]

I've done it before, guessed somebody's type by their appearance without talking to them, so I'm of opinion that it works. Chances of randomly predicting type are 1/16 but my accuracy was over 50%.

There are some scientific studies on the subject linked in this thread: http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/showthread.php/37382-Personality-and-Physical-Appearance.

Also Socionics has a sub-section called visual identification, you can see some photographs here of people of same type: http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/showthread.php/31643-Filatova-portraits people of same type do look similar

 

[Tiger Owl]

Is it scientific? No more so than the demented pseudoscience of eugenics, though not likely to be as damaging. Unless some jackboot decides that certain MBTI types are likely to exhibit violent sociopathic tendencies and/or terrorism and ties it to facial typing leading to involuntary internment, imprisonment and sterilization for the 'good of the people'.

In my opinion.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

lol. scientific evidence? c'mon lily.

I think there is something to that observation though.

And I think you can get close to a person's type by how they look and their demeanor....or by how they choose to appear.

 

[Jaq]

This.

.

 

[DonCoryon]

Judging people on their looks is quite common. To some extent I think it is theoretically possible. Studies may be able to show that certain types share certain features. I doubt it would be 100% accurate. I would also wonder how the traits would appear when comparing people from different races.

Also Socionics has a sub-section called visual identification, you can see some photographs here of people of same type: http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/showthread.php/31643-Filatova-portraits people of same type do look similar

Also, the profiles on the Socionics dot com website includes physical descriptions of each type for their leading paragraph.

 

[chickpea]

The sad truth is that we aren't aware of the majority of the serial killers, past and present. The police only get them through chance and circumstance. There are probably a few serial killers active currently. So I call bullshit. It's slightly less scientific as avoiding middle-aged, middle class, single, white males in order to not get killed.

i kinda do assume all middle-aged white men are serial killers and avoid them. haven't gotten murdered yet!

 

[mrcockburn]

uh...you can see the whites under my irises. I'm not insane. (I don't think)

Then again, it's only a very thin white line.

Shut up.

My irises are just highly set.