You may be "moving on up" in life, but you can't leave behind subtle facial clues that will give away secrets of your childhood. Researchers have discovered that in addition to your mom's eyes and your dad's nose, your face reveals clues about your socioeconomic status as a child.
According to msnbc.com, researchers reviewed information on 292 adults who were born in 1921 and participated in a long-term research trial that involved answering questions about their socioeconomic status as children and as adults. The study, published in Economics and Human Biology, found that at age 87 — seven decades after their childhoods ended, their faces showed traces of their early upbringing.
The researchers found a link between deprivation in early life and facial symmetry. Factors such as childhood nutrition, illness, and parents' alcohol habits, left a lasting impression on faces of the participants that were especially telling in men. Participants who experienced deprivation in early life tended to have more asymmetrical features as they aged — even though their social standing had improved as adults — than those who had better social and economic backgrounds as children.
"Our results show that symmetrical faces reflect better social and economic circumstances," Timothy Bates, a professor of individual differences in psychology at the University of Edinburgh, and one of the study's co-authors, told msnbc.com. "But we don't know the specific elements of these desirable circumstances that lead to more symmetrical development."
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