人如其名或许真的存在

Do you look like your name? Scientists say there’s a good chance you do.

一个人的长相和名字是否相关?科学家称有很大概率的确如此。

This comes from a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Researchers from Israel found that our given names may carry social stereotypes (成见), which can be seen in our facial appearances.

这一结论来源于《人格与社会心理学期刊》发布的一项新研究。来自以色列的研究者们发现，我们的名字中或许带有社会成见，而这点能从我们的容貌上看出来。

Lead author Yonat Zwebner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, along with her team, carried out eight separate studies involving hundreds of participants (参与者) in Israel and France. The different experiments were set up to answer two main questions: whether people can accurately guess a person’s name based only on a headshot (头像) and what is behind this matching effect.

该研究的第一作者是希伯来大学的Yonat Zwebner。她和她的团队在以色列和法国开展了八项独立研究，参与者有数百人。这些不同的实验想要回答两个主要的问题：人们是否能够仅凭头像就准确地猜出一个人的名字，以及这一匹配效应背后的原理又是什么。

During the experiments, researchers asked students to look at photos of people’s faces and guess each person’s name from a list of four choices. The participants correctly guessed the right name 38 percent of the time, which was better than the 25 percent rate of a random (随机的) one-in-four guess.

在实验过程中，研究者们让学生看着人像照，并从四个选项中猜出每个人的名字。参与者们当时猜对了38%的名字，比随机四选一25%的概率还要高。

What’s more, the students were able to best match the faces to the names when the faces they looked at came from within their own culture. French students were better at matching only French names and faces while Israeli students were better at matching only Hebrew names and Israeli faces.

更重要的是，当学生们看到和他们来自同一文化的人脸时，匹配名字和脸的能力最强。法国学生能更好地匹配法国人的名字和样貌，而以色列学生则更擅长匹配希伯来语名字和以色列人的面孔。

Researchers believe it is possible that people change their appearance without being aware (意识到) of it, to match social norms (规范) carried by their names. One study in particular backed up this idea, showing that a hairstyle, something that can be changed by individuals (个人) easily, was enough to guide people in accurately guessing their names.

研究者们认为，为了和名字中蕴含的社会规范相匹配，人们有可能在不知不觉中改变自己的外表。一项研究专门证实了这一点，该研究表明，个人可以轻而易举改变的发型，就足以使别人准确猜到自己的名字。

“Earlier research has shown there are cultural stereotypes carried by names, including how someone should look. For example, people are more likely to imagine a person named Bob to have a rounder face than a person named Tim. We believe these stereotypes can, over time, influence people’s facial appearance,” Zwebner concluded.

“先前的研究已经表明名字中带有文化成见，这也包含了一个人的长相。”打个比方说，和叫蒂姆的人相比，人们更倾向于将叫鲍勃的人想象成一个圆脸的人。我们相信，随着时间的流逝，这些固有印象影响着人们的容貌，”Zwebner 总结道。

The results of the experiment may even make parents think twice when choosing a name for their child.

该实验的结果或许会让父母在为孩子取名时三思而行。

“If a name can influence appearance, it can influence many other things and this research opens an important direction that may suggest how parents should consider better the names they give their children,” said Zwebner, who recently had a baby herself.

“如果名字能够影响容貌，那它也能影响许多其他事情。而这一研究则指明了一个大方向，令家长们在给孩子起名一事上更加认真考虑。”

“As parents, it was really difficult for us to name our 12-day-old daughter as we are aware of the implication (意义) of names.”

“作为父母，给我们12天大的女儿取名真的很难，因为我们知道了名字的意义。”