Thicker and more defined eyebrows have grown in popularity over recent years.
But a study, which won a 2020 Ig Nobel Prize, has found that people lucky enough to have these naturally are more likely to be viewed as narcissistic.
Researchers concluded that ‘accurate judgements of grandiose narcissism particularly depend on a person’s eyebrows.’
According to the research, thick and dense eyebrows are a giveaway for characteristics such as ‘high self-esteem, interpersonal dominance and a tendency to overestimate one’s capabilities.’ Or in other words, someone vain, cocky and overconfident.
Participants were asked to take a standard narcissistic personality test to see where they fell on the spectrum, where they were asked how much they agreed with statements like: ‘If I ruled the world it would be a better place’ and ‘I find it easy to manipulate people.’
Then, researchers asked 28 virtual volunteers to look at the portraits and rate them on a scale from one (not narcissistic at all) to eight (extremely narcissistic), after they were told a narcissist is someone who is ‘egotistical, self-focused, and vain.’
After, researchers put black boxes over the photo subjects’ eyes or eyebrows, and then asked participants to rate their perceived narcissism levels to see which facial features most accurately represented this.
Researcher Miranda Giacomin told Insider: ‘We essentially conducted a long series of experiments where we narrowed the face features further and further down until we isolated the eyebrows as being the primary cue for people’s narcissism.’
They even studied the types of eyebrows – in terms of thickness, shape, grooming – and found that distinct eyebrows were more likely to be perceived as narcissists by strangers.
Although, it’s worth pointing out that this study is totally down to people’s perception of others and that some people make their eyebrows look fuller through makeup, rather than having naturally full brows. So there are a lot of other things to take into account.
Also, when we first meet a person, we don’t solely rely on their face to make a first impression – so the study results might not fully reflect real-life experience.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/23/people-with-bushy-eyebrows-more-likely-to-be-identified-as-narcissists-says-study-13313888/
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