Short Stuff: Look-Alike Old Couples

That is right? Right, that's a big one, because yes, there's probably some old people you could find randomly in the crowd and be like this kind of looks like this person, and we probably old people anymore either, right, we should probably say seniors. Yes, elderly elderly, senior adults, I think is what it is actually a good call. I mean I'm right around the corner from being the right, so I'm like, I don't like saying old people, right exactly.

Um so, okay, so senior adults anyway, an older couple, that's what we're gonna say. A couple that's lived together, married or in some sort of partnership, romantic or otherwise for a very long time. They do tend to start to look alike. The older they get, and there's actual science to to back this up. This isn't just some you know, random hilarity there. They've actually done studies about this. Because it's kind of a weird thing if you think

about it. We take it for granted, but the idea that two people who are not related should should come to like look like one another over the years, it's it's a little odd, even though you know it seems like, yeah, of course that's what happens. But why, Chuck, Why is the big question? Well, first of all, I have a question for you. Have you noticed this? Do you think this is the thing, because I've never really noticed this. Um, yeah,

I have. Actually, there's I've seen some couples that I'm like, I think you guys are brother and sister, and it's a little unsettling because they usually seem happy and they're holding hands. But it's uh no, I have definitely seen it before. I don't know. I'm just trying to think in my life, like my grandparents didn't look alike, and

I don't know, I'm trying to piece it together. I do like the science here, because not much of the science really points to like necessarily looking like one another, but let's talk about it, okay. So, and I think also just to kind of clarify your point, it's not like it's an inevitability, sure, but it does happen, and

the fact that it does happen still raises the question why. Yeah. So, Uh, there was a study called Personality and Individual Differences or I'm sorry that was the magazine that was published in the rag that you can find on news stands all over the country, right. Uh, and they serve a twenty They got twenty two people, Um, I guess, eleven men and eleven women who participated in the study. And they said, look at these hundreds. He married couples, but you know

they're separate. You don't know like who's in a couple, and then tell us what you think, go right right? It was it was um who who looks alike? Um, who's married to who? And what they found was that people tended to pick married couples out even though they weren't showing pictures. And since they've shown the men's pictures and they're showing the women's pictures, that was basically like

put them together, and people tended to do that. Also. Um. They also judged them based on attractiveness, and they the people also tended to be rated along the same line, so like a seven typically was paired up with a seven. So the fact that the fact that the fact that you could, um, you could you a random stranger could pick these couples out and and more often than chance

get it right. Put pairing who was married who just based on looks definitely suggests that there's something there, and there's something there that they believe that is really behind it is mostly genetics, yeah, I mean there is non

genetically speaking. I do think there is something to the fact because they make a point in this article that, like, you know, if your personalities are similar, which is probably you know, you generally seek out someone who you think with jibe personality wise, you may end up being a couple who just laughs a lot and enjoys life, and that would affect the same facial muscles and things like that.

Or if you look at any picture like pre nineteen sixty, all you see is two dour looking senior adults standing next to each other, so they may look a little bit more like although I think we've done something on people smiling and pictures, or maybe we just talked about it briefly, but that'd be a good shorty, I think, yeah, surely. I don't recall that at all, Like it was the first goon who put on a big smile in a photo and everyone's like, what did you just do? What

is that You're supposed to frown in pictures? Young man? Can I subscribe to your newsletter? But uh, as far as um genetics go, and we've talked about a lot of this here and there on the show, about people seeking out for life partners and sexual and reproductive partners, people that are more uh similarly similar genetically as themselves,

right right, which makes sense. The idea, the whole premise is that we would seek those people out because our genes have kind of co evolved together, so they fit together, they work together more readily, um, which is uh you know. So some people would say, okay, well you should stick with your own kind and and and not marry outside of your own group or whatever. But the opposite of that is when you get too much homogeneity, the gene

pool starts to really really suffer. So it's good to mix, but at the same time, we seem to be geared, at least according to this school of thought toward seeking out mates that we we might be able to genetically be more genetically compatible with the question is this though beyond say, something glaringly obvious is somebody saying, like, um, you know, just sticking to their ethnic group or racial group or something like that to to marry and have

kids with. How else would you, like, if you're not doing that, how would you possibly pick out somebody based on genetics? Like? How would you know how someone's um compatible with you genetically? This is like, so there's we've got the question of how to old I'm sorry, senior adult couples start to look alike. But then if it's genetics, how do we find that out? You know, like, what are we doing? All Right? That seems like a good spot for a break, and we'll come back and talk

about sexual imprinting right after this. So I promised talk

of sexual imprinting about sixty seconds ago. And there's this thing and and it's not just like something people say, it's there's a real thing where they've done studies and found that women, Um, I was gonna say generally, but studies indicate that women, if they if they have fathers, that they were close to and that they love that, they will seek out adult relationships with men who are like their fathers, and then includes looking like their fathers,

looking like their father's, behaving like their fathers, Like if their father was stern but kind, you know, they will probably look for that and a mate if their father was like, hey you, you do you. But the the key seems to be that the father and the daughter's bond and relationship is is very strong, and the stronger it is, the more of this sexual imprinting there is.

And so rather than like the girl, you know, secretly having the hots for her dad or something like that, not that, no, But but it's what that gets confused for is it's actually the father has provided a model saying, hey, I'm genetically related to you. You turned up pretty good, We have a pretty good relationship. Find a guy who's

kind of like me, and you can't miss the genetic crap. Shoot. Yeah, and not even genetically, because the same has held true through adoptive fathers and daughters they found in studies as well well. No, I think they were saying adopted daughters imprint on their genetic fathers. Oh no, I thought, I said, I thought I read it as they still I got you, I got you. Yeah, you're right, that would be the case. But then that kind of undermines the genetic basis of it,

doesn't it a little bit. But that's the nature nurture thing, you know. Yeah, well, this whole thing is one big question of like nature nurture. Yeah, I don't know. I don't I don't think that's a that's an interesting can of worms there that we're not going to completely open. Okay, all right, UM, so are some other things that we can so that. That's one that for women in particular, the sexual imprinting on the fathers one way that they

are guided toward mate selection. Right. There's also UM personalities another one. There's a genetic basis for that behavior's traits. UM. There's all sorts of stuff that you can pick up in somebody's face, UM, in their body shape, their body style that suggests not necessarily that their genes are going to mix well with your particular genes, but that they are UM genetically sound I guess in one way. And

one of the big ones is symmetry. Both body symmetry and facial symmetry is a classic UM standard for for just universal beauty. Symmetry tends to be equated with beauty and attractiveness. Yeah, we've talked about this quite a bit in the past two Um, they've done studies and test subjects kind of roundly rate symmetrical men and women as not only um like just better looking, more attractive to them,

but potentially healthier. And they say that the whole you know, evolutionary basis of a lot of this is, whether we know it or not, we're technically probably seeking out people that we think are healthy and have good chains, and women are seeking women who can carry their child and they even have It's such a gross term, but um, supposedly, you know, they've done studies where men prefer women with a waste to hip ratio a point seven, which sounds

just like, I don't know, this sounds like something some creep would carry around like a notebook and like some calipers or something like that. Yeah, and be like, you're really nice and funny at all, but you're waste to hip ratio is not quite right for me. Well, it goes both ways too. There's a preferred waste to hip ratio ratio among men for women or women that women have for men and supposedly that sounds really bizarre, but um,

that has a lot to do with fat deposits. Where fat gets deposited around your hips depending on your sex and x is driven by hormones, and especially fat deposition and where it goes is driven by hormones. So if you have your fat building up in all the right places according to your sex you were, you were basically broadcasting that you are quite fertile and feaking and ready to raise ten kids and start a farm. Let's do this is what your hips are shouting. Well, what you're doing.

What you want is to seek someone out that you can raise, uh, have a lot of and raise future little employees. Basically, yeah, exactly Uh. And back to the symmetry thing. Um. They have found also in studies that the more symmetrical you are, um, you're also gonna have more sex and more sexual partners in your life, especially

if you're a man, or particularly if you're a man. Yeah. Yeah, um, So it does seem to come down the answer to this question why senior adult couples uh can sometimes start to look like one another is that they are probably genetically similar to begin with. Yeah, and then they go through life experiences together that shaped them together. So you put all that together, you've got an older, senior adult couple who looks like brother and sister and they still

kiss in front of people. Yeah, you put that all together. Throw them both in lavender track suits, which always helps. There is that thing too, where couples inadvertently I guess start to dress or maybe very purposefully start to dress a like. I got no problems with that, baby, uh. And then dog look alikes we should finish with, because everyone loves those great listicles photos of people that look like their dogs, and that is a thing that can happen. Uh.

And they did a study in two thousand four. I don't know how this got funded, um, but it apparently indicated that people who shop for pure bred dogs uh tend to look for dogs that look like them. Yeah. I want I want to see my face looking back at me in my dog's face. Yeah, I've seen it. But they say that it's pure bread. Is only people who like rescue, you know, MutS from shelters or they're like whatever, I just like, how your your personality? I

guess that's right. So, um, there you go, there you have it. I guess that means chuck. Then short stuff is a way Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.