The researchers, led by Jonathan Zuebner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, conducted a series of experiments with 300 participants.
In each experiment, the volunteer saw a color photograph of a stranger and had to guess the name of the person depicted, having to choose from a list of five names.
If the answer was purely random, the success rate of the participants had to be 20% (ie a five in one chance of finding the right name at random).
However, the success rate turned out to be from 25% to 40%, which means that in addition to luck, other factors also play a role. According to researchers, this is mainly due to the cultural stereotypes that accompany each name.
Also, the style of haircut or hairstyle plays a crucial role in matching a person with a name. The success rate in predicting a name was on average 30% when the photo did not show the hair, but 36% when it appeared.
The researchers then trained a computer algorithm to do this matching names and persons. Having to choose between two names for each person each time (the process was repeated for over 94.000 people), the computer had a success rate of 54% to 64%, more than the 50% one would expect if the choice was only random.
Psychologists believe that it is possible for many people to subconsciously adjust their appearance to look more like what society would expect of them based on their name.
It is, basically, according to Zwebner, the same process of compliance with stereotypes, which applies e.g. with gender and race, when people adjust their image according to the expectations of others from them.
Previous research has shown these stereotypes in the way one imagines the face of a name. For example, someone named Bob imagines that he will have a rounder face than someone named Tom. In the process, Bob, without realizing it, can shape his face (eg by changing his hairstyle) so that it looks rounder.
According to psychologists, the new study confirms that the name has its own power over the person, therefore the name that parents choose for their child, can subconsciously affect it in later life.
Source: RES-EAP
