Wrinkles, relationships, science, etc.:
Couples often start to look alike as they grow older, because one consequence of mimicking a partner’s facial expressions after years of cohabitation is that the repeated use of the same facial muscles means that faces start to look more similar. If one partner smiles in a certain way and the other is likely to copy it, similar patterns of wrinkles and molding of facial muscles will occur. Because empathizing is likely one key to marital bliss, it follows that spouses who look more alike after many years of marriage — because of the mimicking of expressions and mannerisms— should report being happier together. This is exactly what research has found.
I’m almost positive that one hundred years from now historians will look back and say that mankind circa 2012 went waaaay overboard in thinking that a slew of glib psychological research and pop neuroscience books with one-syllable titles (Blink! Imagine! Choke!) could possibly explain or demystify human behavior in any meaningful way…
BUT: a) this stuff make for good conversation/blogging fodder, b) believing that a few half-baked research papers explain complicated human interactions can’t be any worse than falling under the spell of Nietzsche or, I dunno, Paulo Coehlo, and c) this here study’s totally charming—happy elderly couples with matching wrinkles!
So there.
