sexual imprinting part 2

'Sexual imprinting'
Looking for the perfect partner?
Then just take a good look at your parents

Published Date: 03 September 2008 in The Scotsman, Edinburgh
By Tanya Thompson
Social Affairs Correspondent

The next time you gaze into your partner's eyes you may find they look vaguely familiar. Scientists now believe they have found the key ingredient to any love match – and it's all in the genes.

A new study suggests that "daddy's girls" choose men who look like their fathers, while "mummy's boys" cannot resist women who remind them of their mothers.

Scientists say people use their opposite sex parents as a template for picking a mate by a process called "sexual imprinting".

Psychologist Dr. Tamas Bereczkei and colleagues took 52 families and examined how alike various members were based on facial measurements. They found the women picked men strikingly similar to their father, with the mouth and nose being the most important features.

Meanwhile, the findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggested men actively seek out women who look like their mothers.

Dr. Bereczkei, of the University of Pecs in Hungary, said: "Significant correlations have been found between the young men and their partner's father … especially on facial proportions belonging to the central area of face. Women also showed resemblance to their partner's mother … in the facial characteristics of their lower face.

"Our results support the sexual imprinting hypothesis which states that children shape a mental template of their opposite sex parents and search for a partner who resembles that perception."

Well-known daddy's girls whose husbands bear more than a passing resemblance to their fathers include television presenter Zoe Ball. Her husband, the DJ Norman "Fatboy Slim" Cook, has similar eyes, ears and smile to those of her father, ex-children's TV presenter Johnny Ball.

The same goes for celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, whose husband, advertising guru Charles Saatchi, and father, ex-Chancellor Nigel Lawson, have similar eyes, noses and hair styles. Gwyneth Paltrow's husband Chris Martin also bears a long-faced resemblance to her late father Bruce. And Scots actor Ewan McGregor's wife, Eve, is said to be a carbon-copy of his mother Carol. Their faces follow the same shape and both have dark hair, sensuous, oval eyes and long, thin eyebrows.

It is believed the phenomenon of sexual imprinting evolved to help youngsters choose a compatible mate.

By modelling their own choice of partner on their parents' successful marriage, a daddy's girl or mummy's boy may increase their own chances of having a happy partnership. They may also believe that a man who looks like their father or a woman who looks like their mother is more likely to be a good parent.

Professor Cary Cooper, a psychologist from Lancaster University, said: "I think unconsciously we probably do select our partners based on our own parental models."

In the study, 14 facial proportions were measured on 312 adults from the 52 families, and the correlations between family members were compared with those of pairs randomly selected from the population.

The family consisted of a young man and his long-term partner or young woman and her long-term partner, his father and his mother, and her mother and father. The young people, all university students, were aged between 21 and 32 and the average length of their relationship was 18.6 months.