Physiognomy

Physiognomy (from the Greek φύσις physis meaning "nature" and gnomon meaning "judge" or "interpreter") is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. The term can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain without reference to its implied characteristics—as in the physiognomy of an individual plant (see plant life-form) or of a plant community (see vegetation).

For the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, see Physiognomonics. For the 2013 Korean film, see Physiognomy (film).
Lithographic drawing illustrative of the relation between the human physiognomy and that of the brute creation, by Charles Le Brun (1619-1690).
Illustration in a 19th-century book about physiognomy

Credence of such study has varied. The practice was well accepted by the ancient Greek philosophers, but fell into disrepute in the Middle Ages when practised by vagabonds and mountebanks. It was then revived and popularised by Johann Kaspar Lavater before falling from favour again in the late 19th century.[1] Physiognomy as understood in the past meets the contemporary definition of a pseudoscience.[2] Popular in the 19th century, it has been used as a basis for scientific racism.[3] No clear evidence indicates physiognomy works, but the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning for facial recognition has brought a revival of interest, and some studies that suggest that facial appearances do "contain a kernel of truth" about a person's personality.[1]

Physiognomy is also sometimes referred to as anthroposcopy, though the expression was more common in the 19th century when the word originated.[4]

Ancient physiognomy
Further information: Physiognomonics § Ancient physiognomy before the Physiognomonics

Notions of the relationship between an individual's outward appearance and inner character are historically ancient, and occasionally appear in early Greek poetry. Siddhars from ancient India are also known to have defined samudrika lakshanam that identifies personal characteristics with body features. Chinese physiognomy or face reading (mianxiang) reaches back at least to the Northern Song period.[5] The first indications of a developed physiognomic theory appear in fifth century BC Athens, with the works of Zopyrus (who was featured in a dialogue by Phaedo of Elis), who was said to be an expert in the art. By the fourth century BC, the philosopher Aristotle made frequent reference to theory and literature concerning the relationship of appearance to character. Aristotle was apparently receptive to such an idea, as evidenced by a passage in his Prior Analytics:

It is possible to infer character from features, if it is granted that the body and the soul are changed together by the natural affections: I say "natural", for though perhaps by learning music a man has made some change in his soul, this is not one of those affections natural to us; rather I refer to passions and desires when I speak of natural emotions. If then this were granted and also that for each change there is a corresponding sign, and we could state the affection and sign proper to each kind of animal, we shall be able to infer character from features.

— Prior Analytics 2.27 (Trans. A. J. Jenkinson)

The first systematic physiognomic treatise to survive to the present day is a slim volume, Physiognomonica (English: Physiognomonics), ascribed to Aristotle (but probably of his "school" rather than created by the philosopher himself). The volume is divided into two parts, conjectured to have been originally two separate works. The first section discusses arguments drawn from nature or other races, and concentrates on the concept of human behavior. The second section focuses on animal behavior, dividing the animal kingdom into male and female types. From these are deduced correspondences between human form and character.

After Aristotle, the major extant works in physiognomy are:

  • Polemo of Laodicea, de Physiognomonia (second century AD), in Greek
  • Adamantius the Sophist, Physiognomonica (fourth century), in Greek
  • An anonymous Latin author de Phsiognomonia (about fourth century)

Ancient Greek mathematician, astronomer, and scientist Pythagoras—who some believe originated physiognomics—once rejected a prospective follower named Cylon because, to Pythagoras, his appearance indicated bad character.[6]

After inspecting Socrates, a physiognomist announced that he was given to intemperance, sensuality, and violent bursts of passion—which was so contrary to Socrates's image that his students accused the physiognomist of lying. Socrates put the issue to rest by saying that originally he was given to all these vices, but had particularly strong self-discipline.[7]

Middle Ages and Renaissance
Giambattista Della Porta, De humana physiognomonia (Vico Equense [Naples]: Apud Iosephum Cacchium, 1586

The term was common in Middle English, often written as 'fisnamy' or 'visnomy', as in the Tale of Beryn, a spurious addition to The Canterbury Tales: "I knowe wele by thy fisnamy, thy kynd it were to stele".

Physiognomy's validity was once widely accepted. Michael Scot, a court scholar for Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, wrote Liber physiognomiae in the early 13th century concerning the subject. English universities taught it until Henry VIII of England outlawed "beggars and vagabonds playing 'subtile, crafty and unlawful games such as physnomye or 'palmestrye'" in 1530 or 1531.[8][9] Around this time, scholastic leaders settled on the more erudite Greek form 'physiognomy' and began to discourage the whole concept of 'fisnamy'.

Leonardo da Vinci dismissed physiognomy in the early 16th century as "false", a chimera with "no scientific foundation".[10] Nevertheless, Leonardo believed that lines caused by facial expressions could indicate personality traits. For example, he wrote that "those who have deep and noticeable lines between the eyebrows are irascible".[10]

Modern physiognomy

The principal promoter of physiognomy in modern times was the Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) who was briefly a friend of Goethe. Lavater's essays on physiognomy were first published in German in 1772 and gained great popularity. These influential essays were translated into French and English.

Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne

Lavater found 'confirmation' of his ideas from the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), and the Italian Giambattista Della Porta (1535–1615). Browne in his Religio Medici (1643) discusses the possibility of the discernment of inner qualities from the outer appearance of the face, thus:

there is surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe. ... For there are mystically in our faces certain Characters that carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C. may read our natures.

— Religio Medici, part 2:2

He reaffirmed his physiognomic beliefs in Christian Morals (circa 1675):

Since the Brow speaks often true, since Eyes and Noses have Tongues, and the countenance proclaims the heart and inclinations; let observation so far instruct thee in Physiognomical lines ... we often observe that Men do most act those Creatures, whose constitution, parts, and complexion do most predominate in their mixtures. This is a corner-stone in Physiognomy ... there are therefore Provincial Faces, National Lips and Noses, which testify not only the Natures of those Countries, but of those which have them elsewhere.

— Part 2 section 9


Browne also introduced the word caricature into the English language, whence much of physiognomical belief attempted to entrench itself by illustrative means, in particular through visual political satire.

Della Porta's works are well represented in the Library of Sir Thomas Browne including Of Celestial Physiognomy, in which Porta argued that it was not the stars but a person's temperament that influences their facial appearance and character. In De humana physiognomia (1586), Porta used woodcuts of animals to illustrate human characteristics. Both Della Porta and Browne adhered to the 'doctrine of signatures'—that is, the belief that the physical structures of nature such as a plant's roots, stem, and flower, were indicative keys (or 'signatures') to their medicinal potentials.

Lavater's critics
Johann Kaspar Lavater

Lavater received mixed reactions from scientists, with some accepting his research and others criticizing it.[2] For example, the harshest critic was scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who said pathognomy, discovering the character by observing the behaviour, was more effective. Writer Hannah More complained to Horace Walpole, "In vain do we boast ... that philosophy had broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition; and yet, at this very time ... Lavater's physiognomy books sell at fifteen guineas a set."[2][11]

Period of popularity

The popularity of physiognomy grew throughout the first quarter of the 18th century and into the 19th century. It was discussed seriously by academics, who believed in its potential.[12] Many European novelists used physiognomy in the descriptions of their characters,[12] notably Balzac, Chaucer[13] and portrait artists, such as Joseph Ducreux. A host of 19th-century English authors were influenced by the idea, notably evident in the detailed physiognomic descriptions of characters in the novels of Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and Charlotte Brontë.

In addition to Thomas Browne, other literary authors associated with Norwich who made physiognomical observations in their writings include the romantic novelist Amelia Opie, and the travelogue author George Borrow.

Physiognomy is a central, implicit assumption underlying the plot of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. In 19th-century American literature, physiognomy figures prominently in the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe.[14]

Phrenology, also considered a form of physiognomy, was created around 1800 by German physician Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Spurzheim, and was widely popular in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. In the U.S., physician James W. Redfield published his Comparative Physiognomy in 1852, illustrating with 330 engravings the "Resemblances between Men and Animals". He finds these in appearance and (often metaphorically) character, e.g. Germans to Lions, Negroes to Elephants and Fishes, Chinamen to Hogs, Yankees to Bears, Jews to Goats.[15]

During the late 19th century, English psychometrician Sir Francis Galton attempted to define physiognomic characteristics of health, disease, beauty, and criminality, via a method of composite photography.[16][17] Galton's process involved the photographic superimposition of two or more faces by multiple exposures. After averaging together photographs of violent criminals, he found that the composite appeared "more respectable" than any of the faces comprising it; this was likely due to the irregularities of the skin across the constituent images being averaged out in the final blend. With the advent of computer technology during the early 1990s, Galton's composite technique has been adopted and greatly improved using computer graphics software.[18]

In the late 19th century, it became associated with phrenology and consequently discredited and rejected.[1] Nevertheless, the German physiognomist Carl Huter (1861–1912) became popular in Germany with his concept of physiognomy, called "psycho-physiognomy".[19]

Physiognomy also became of use in the field of Criminology through efforts made by Italian army doctor and scientist, Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso, during the mid 19th century, championed the notion that "criminality was inherited and that criminals could be identified by physical attributes such as hawk-like noses and bloodshot eyes".[20] Lombroso took inspiration from the recently released ideologies and studies of Darwin and carried many of the misunderstandings that he had regarding evolution into the propagation of the use of physiognomy in criminology.[21] His logic stemmed from the idea that "criminals were 'throwbacks' in the phylogenetic tree to early phases of evolution".[21] Bearing this in mind, it is reasonable to conclude that "according to Lombroso, a regressive characteristic united the genius, the madman and the delinquent; they differed in the intensity of this characteristic and, naturally in the degree of development of the positive qualities".[21] He believed that one could determine whether one was of savage nature just by their physical characteristics. Based on his findings, "Lombroso proposed that the "born criminal" could be distinguished by physical atavistic stigmata, such as:

  • large jaws, forward projection of jaw,
  • low sloping forehead,
  • high cheekbones,
  • flattened or upturned nose,
  • handle-shaped ears,
  • hawk-like noses or fleshy lips,
  • hard shifty eyes,
  • scanty beard or baldness,
  • insensitivity to pain,
  • long arms relative to lower limbs.

This interest in the relationship between criminology and physiognomy began upon Lombroso's first interaction with "a notorious Calabrian thief and arsonist" named Giuseppe Villella.[20] Lombroso was particularly taken by many striking personality characteristics that Villella possessed; agility and cynicism being some of them. Upon Villella's death, Lombroso "conducted a post-mortem and discovered that his subject had an indentation at the back of his skull, which resembled that found in apes".[20] He later referred to this anomaly as the "median occipital depression".[22] Lombroso used the term "atavism" to describe these primitive, ape-like behaviors that he found in many of those whom he deemed prone to criminality. As he continued analyzing the data he gathered from said autopsy and comparing and contrasting these results with previous cases, he inferred that certain physical characteristics allowed for some individuals to have a greater "propensity to offend and were also savage throwbacks to early man".[20] As one would assume, these sorts of examinations yielded far-reaching consequences for various scientific and medical communities at the time; in fact, "the natural genesis of crime implied that the criminal personality should be regarded as a particular form of psychiatric disease".[21] Furthermore, these ideals promoted the idea that when a crime is committed, it is no longer seen as "free will" but instead a result of one's genetic pre-disposition to savagery.[21] He had numerous case studies to corroborate many of his findings due to the fact that he was the head of an insane asylum at Pesaro. He was easily able to study people from various walks of life and was thus able to further define criminal types. Because his theories primarily focused on anatomy and anthropological information, the idea of degeneracy being a source of atavism was not explored till later on in his criminological endeavors.[23] These "new and improved" theories led to the notion "that the born criminal had pathological symptoms in common with the moral imbecile and the epileptic, and this led him to expand his typology to include the insane criminal and the epileptic criminal". In addition, "the insane criminal type [was said to] include the alcoholic, the mattoid, and the hysterical criminal".[23] When it comes to modern applications of Lombroso's findings and ideas, there is little to see. Lombroso's ideologies are now recognized as flawed, and regarded as pseudo-science. Many have remarked on the overt sexist and racist overtones of his research, and denounce it for those reasons alone.[22] In spite of many of his theories being discredited, he is still hailed as the father of "scientific criminology". Modern criminology finds many of his teaching incorrect, but he had a great influence over criminology and physiognomy at the time.

Modern usage

In France, the concept developed in the 20th century under the name morphopsychology, developed by Louis Corman (1901–1995), a French psychiatrist who argued that the workings of vital forces within the human body resulted in different facial shapes and forms.[24] For example, full and round body shapes are considered the expression of the instinct of expansion while the hollow or flat shapes are an expression of self-preservation. The term "morphopsychology" is a translation of the French word morphopsychologie, which Louis Corman coined in 1937 when he wrote his first book on the subject, Quinze leçons de morphopsychologie (Fifteen Lessons of Morphopsychology). Corman was influenced by the French doctor Claude Sigaud (1862–1921), incorporating his idea of "dilation and retraction" into morphopsychology.

A bizarre physiognomical caricature with a figure pointing to another's sore eye. Oil painting by a follower of Louis-Léopold Boilly.

Scientific validity

Research in the 1990s indicated that three elements of personality in particular – power, warmth and honesty – can be reliably inferred.[25] Some evidence indicates people can detect male homosexuality by looking at the pattern of whorls in the scalp,[26] though subsequent research has largely refuted the findings on hair whorl patterns.[27]

A February 2009 article in New Scientist magazine reported that physiognomy is living a small revival, with research papers trying to find links between personality traits and facial traits.[1] A study of 90 ice hockey players found a statistically significant correlation between a wider face—a greater than average cheekbone-to-cheekbone distance relative to the distance between brow and upper lip—and the number of penalty minutes a player received for violent acts like slashing, elbowing, checking from behind, and fighting.[28]

This revival has been confirmed in the 2010s with the rise of machine learning for facial recognition. For instance, researchers have claimed that it is possible to predict upper body strength and some personality traits (propensity to aggression) only by looking at the width of the face.[29]

In 2017, a controversial study claimed that an algorithm could detect sexual orientation 'more accurately than humans' (in 81% of the tested cases for men and 71% for women). According to BBC News, "The work has been accused of being dangerous' and 'junk science'".[30] In early 2018, researchers, among them two specialists of AI working at Google (one of the two on face recognition), issued a reportedly contradicting study based on a survey of 8,000 Americans using Amazon's Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform. The survey yielded many traits helping to discriminate between gay and straight respondents with a series of yes/no questions. These traits had actually less to do with morphology than with grooming, presentation, and lifestyle (makeup, facial hair, glasses, angle of pictures taken of self, etc.).[31] For more information of this sexual orientation issue in general, see Gaydar.

In 2020, a study on the use of consumer facial images for marketing research purposes concluded that deep learning on facial images can extract a variety of personal information relevant to marketers and so users' facial images could become a basis for ad targeting on Tinder and Facebook.[32] According to the study, while most of facial images' predictive power is attributable to basic demographics (age, gender, race) extracted from the face, image artifacts, observable facial characteristics, and other image features extracted by deep learning all contribute to prediction quality beyond demographics.

Other clues have also been proposed to refute physiognomist claims.[1] For example, the human mind tends to extrapolate emotions from facial expressions (e.g., blushing) and physiognomy, with its assumption of permanent characteristics, would only be an over-generalization of this skill.[1] Also, if one classifies a person as untrustworthy due to facial features, and treats them as such, that person eventually behaves in an untrustworthy way toward the person holding this belief (see Self-fulfilling prophecy).[1]

In media

In 2011, the South Korean news agency Yonhap published a physiognomical analysis of the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un.[33]

gollark: I mean, I don't do those things, but still.
gollark: I don't really like the increasing regulation of things and difficulty of doing possibly-dangerous things as a hobbyist.
gollark: As I said, we live in a society.
gollark: They would never *reduce* fees probably.
gollark: We really do live in a society.

References
  1. How your looks betray your personality – New Scientist (Magazine issue 2695) – 11 February 2009: Roger Highfield, Richard Wiseman, and Rob Jenkins
  2. Roy Porter (2003). "Marginalized practices". The Cambridge History of Science: Eighteenth-century science. The Cambridge History of Science. 4 (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 495–497. ISBN 978-0-521-57243-9. Although we may now bracket physiognomy with Mesmerism as discredited or even laughable belief, many eighteenth-century writers referred to it in all seriousness as a useful science with a long history ... Although many modern historians belittle physiognomy as a pseudoscience, at the end of the eighteenth century it was not merely a popular fad but also the subject of intense academic debate about the promises it held for future progress.
  3. American Anthropological Association. "Eugenics and Physical Anthropology". August 7, 2007.
  4. "Anthroposcopy - Define Anthroposcopy at Dictionary.com". Dictionary.com.
  5. TJ Hinrichs; Linda L. Barnes (2013). Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Belknap Press, p. 374.
  6. Riedweg, Christop, Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching, and Influence.
  7. William Godwin (1876). "Lives of the Necromancers". p. 8.
  8. Stimson, Frederic Jesup (1910). Popular Law-Making: A Study of the Origin, History, and Present Tendencies of Law-Making by Statute. (Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 81–82, 86. ISBN 978-1-58477-094-7. LCCN 00-022513.
  9. "Popular Law-making by Frederic Jesup Stimson - Full Text Free Book (Part 2/8)". fullbooks.com.
  10. Leonardo da Vinci (2002). André Chastel (ed.). Leonardo on Art and the Artist. Translated from French by Ellen Callman. Courier Dover Publications. pp. 144–45. ISBN 978-0-486-42166-7. Unabridged republication of The Genius of Leonardo da Vinci, originally published by Orion Press, New York, 1961.
  11. Letter to Horace Walpole of September 1788, reproduced in W. S. Lewis, The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, 48 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1937–1983), 31:279–281 (quotation at p. 280). Citation taken from Roy Porter's The Cambridge History of Science: Eighteenth-century science.
  12. Roy Porter (2003). "Marginalized practices". The Cambridge History of Science: Eighteenth-century science. The Cambridge History of Science. 4 (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 495–497. ISBN 978-0-521-57243-9. Although we may now bracket physiognomy with Mesmerism as discredited or even laughable belief, many eighteenth-century writers referred to it in all seriousness as a useful science with a long history ... Although many modern historians belittle physiognomy as a pseudoscience, at the end of the eighteenth century it was not merely a popular fad but also the subject of intense academic debate about the promises it held for future progress.
  13. Auguste Elfriede Christa Canitz, Gernot Rudolf Wieland, ed. (1999). "Another look at an Old 'Science': Chaucer's Pilgrims and Physiognomy". From Arabye to Engelond: medieval studies in honour of Mahmoud Manzalaoui on his 75th birthday. Actexpress Series. University of Ottawa Press. pp. 93–110. ISBN 978-0-7766-0517-3.
  14. Grayson, Erik (2005). "Weird Science, Weirder Unity: Phrenology and Physiognomy in Edgar Allan Poe". Mode. 1: 56–77.
  15. Redfield, James W. (1852). Comparative Physiognomy or Resemblances between Men and Animals. Redfield.
  16. Benson, P., & Perrett, D. (1991). Computer averaging and manipulations of faces. In P. Wombell (ed.), Photovideo: Photography in the age of the computer (pp. 32–38). London: Rivers Oram Press.
  17. Galton, Francis (1879). "Composite Portraits, Made by Combining Those of Many Different Persons Into a Single Resultant Figure". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 8: 132–144. doi:10.2307/2841021. JSTOR 2841021.
  18. Yamaguchi MK, Hirukawa T, Kanazawa S (May 1995). "Judgment of gender through facial parts". Perception. 24 (5): 563–575. doi:10.1068/p240563. PMID 7567430.
  19. Burguete, Maria (2008). Science Matters: Humanities as Complex Systems. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., p. 66.
  20. "The 'born criminal'? Lombroso and the origins of modern criminology". History Extra. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
  21. Mazzarello, P (2011). "Cesare Lombroso: an anthropologist between evolution and degeneration". Funct Neurol. 26 (2): 97–101. PMC 3814446. PMID 21729591.
  22. Simon, Matt (November 2014). "Fantastically wrong: The scientist who seriously believed criminals were part ape". Science. Wired.
  23. "Lombroso, Cesare". Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Encyclopedia.com.
  24. Merlini, C. (1999). "Chapter 7 - Face Profile Improvement: Psychological Aspects". Advances in Clinical Prosthodontics. Padova, Italy: Piccin Nuova Libraria, S.p.A. p. 134. ISBN 978-88-299-1300-8.
  25. Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas and Adrian Furnham. The Psychology of Personnel Selection. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Cambridge Books Online. Web. 07 April 2016. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511819308 pages 13-14
  26. Abrahams, Marc (14 September 2009), "Sexual swirls: how your hair can say a lot about you", The Guardian, retrieved 10 October 2013
  27. Rahman Q, Clarke K, Morera T (April 2009). "Hair whorl direction and sexual orientation in human males". Behavioral Neuroscience. 123 (2): 252–6. doi:10.1037/a0014816. PMID 19331448.
  28. Carré, Justin M.; McCormick, Cheryl M. (2008-11-22). "In your face: facial metrics predict aggressive behaviour in the laboratory and in varsity and professional hockey players". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences. 275 (1651): 2651–2656. doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.0873. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 2570531. PMID 18713717.
  29. Johns, David Merritt (2009-10-14). "Facial Profiling". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
  30. "Row over AI that 'identifies gay faces'". BBC News. 11 September 2017. Retrieved 14 January 2018.
  31. Agüera y Arcas, Blaise; Todorov, Alexander; Mitchell, Margaret (11 January 2018). "Do algorithms reveal sexual orientation or just expose our stereotypes?". Medium. Retrieved 14 January 2018.
  32. Tkachenko, Yegor; Jedidi, Kamel (1 June 2020). "What personal information can a consumer facial image reveal? Implications for marketing ROI and consumer privacy". SSRN. SSRN 3616470. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  33. The Face tells all Archived 2013-05-03 at the Wayback Machine, The Center For Arms Control And Non-Proliferation

Further reading
  • Claudia Schmölders, Hitler's Face: The Biography of an Image. Translated by Adrian Daub. University of Pennsylvania Press: 2006. ISBN 0-8122-3902-4.
  • Liz Gerstein, About Face. SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc. ISBN 1-58501-088-X
  • Matthew Hertenstein (2015). The Tell: The Little Clues That Reveal Big Truths about Who We Are. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465036592.
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