Morphopsychology

aban57 · #1 by **aban57** » Sep 15, 2011 10:01 am

When I was a kid, I was very very shy (I'm not fully cured yet :ill:

). This, plus other things, made me very lonely. So I had to find something to feed my curious mind. So I started studying people. What they do, why they do it, all these kind of things.
Then I started watching people's face. Men, women, young, old, everyone> I was thinking I could try to "see" what they think on their face. Of course, it didn't work very well :lol:

But with time, I discovered something else : I could find some of people's caracter's traits on their face. But I did it instinctly, correcting it with time, mistakes, experience.

Then 3 years ago, I met an officer at work who spoke about morphopsychology. I've been amazed, I've been doing this instinctively for years, and there's a science for that !
This science has been invented by a french guy, Louis Corman, inspired by physiognomy, and other previous sciences, including phrenology.

The problem is, since morphopsychology is inspired by such old and stupid "sciences", including some of them used by nazis, it's still considered as a pseudo-science by most people.

And I think accepting this on a large scale could create a new form of discrimination, so people are not ready to accept something like that.

Grace · #2 by **Grace** » Sep 16, 2011 3:41 am

Trying to read faces can lead to unfortunate situations.

I dated a young man once who was bothered by my blinking. He said it was a sign that I was lying. He began asking me if I was seeing other men. I told him 'no', but he said the blinking gave me away. He broke up with me of course. Later, I asked a doctor why I blink so much. He said I have allergies to dust and pollen and that causes me to blink more so than a person without allergies. What a jerk that boyfriend was. I keep hoping to run into him some day so I can tell him I am better off without his jealous obsessive judgement towards something I had no control over.

aban57 · #3 by **aban57** » Sep 16, 2011 9:11 am

Grace wrote:Trying to read faces can lead to unfortunate situations.

I dated a young man once who was bothered by my blinking. He said it was a sign that I was lying. He began asking me if I was seeing other men. I told him 'no', but he said the blinking gave me away. He broke up with me of course. Later, I asked a doctor why I blink so much. He said I have allergies to dust and pollen and that causes me to blink more so than a person without allergies. What a jerk that boyfriend was. I keep hoping to run into him some day so I can tell him I am better off without his jealous obsessive judgement towards something I had no control over.

He probably saw that on tv :roll:

But reading faces requires training and teaching, and still, I don't base my judgment on someone only on this, I know I can be wrong

WalterMitty · #4 by **WalterMitty** » Sep 16, 2011 9:44 am

aban57 wrote:He probably saw that on tv

Yes, morphopsychology reminds me of that Tim Roth show "Lie to Me".

aban57 · #5 by **aban57** » Sep 16, 2011 11:32 am

hum not really, he's just "cold reading" people, watching their emotions betray what they say (or don't say).

Morphopsychology is about finding people's caracter on their face

The_Metatron · #6 by **The_Metatron** » Sep 16, 2011 12:23 pm

Grace wrote:Trying to read faces can lead to unfortunate situations.

I dated a young man once who was bothered by my blinking. He said it was a sign that I was lying. He began asking me if I was seeing other men. I told him 'no', but he said the blinking gave me away. He broke up with me of course. Later, I asked a doctor why I blink so much. He said I have allergies to dust and pollen and that causes me to blink more so than a person without allergies. What a jerk that boyfriend was. I keep hoping to run into him some day so I can tell him I am better off without his jealous obsessive judgement towards something I had no control over.

I don't believe you.

Are you blinking?

The_Metatron · #7 by **The_Metatron** » Sep 16, 2011 12:26 pm

I suspect it would be too easy to find errors, or anomalies, which would serve to reduce this to guesswork, and not science.

SafeAsMilk · #8 by **SafeAsMilk** » Sep 16, 2011 12:29 pm

aban57 wrote:hum not really, he's just "cold reading" people, watching their emotions betray what they say (or don't say).

Morphopsychology is about finding people's caracter on their face

How is Morphopsychology different from "cold reading" someone? After all, a cold read has a chance of being right, particularly with someone that has had a lot of practice reading people.

Grace · #9 by **Grace** » Sep 16, 2011 2:02 pm

What if a person had a birth accident in which some of the nerves and muscles are affected in the face?

Aren't some facial characteristics cultural?

I know a young woman who furrows her brows all the time and squints her eyes when anyone talks to her. Is she skeptical? Is she having difficulty focusing her eyes? Is she hard of hearing? She's one of the nicest, kindest people I know. I sure would be discouraged if any one misread her unfortunate facial habit.

aban57 · **#10** by **aban57** » Sep 16, 2011 3:48 pm

Grace wrote:What if a person had a birth accident in which some of the nerves and muscles are affected in the face?

Of course, that changes the study

Grace wrote:Aren't some facial characteristics cultural?

Yes exactly

Grace wrote:I know a young woman who furrows her brows all the time and squints her eyes when anyone talks to her. Is she skeptical? Is she having difficulty focusing her eyes? Is she hard of hearing? She's one of the nicest, kindest people I know. I sure would be discouraged if any one misread her unfortunate facial habit.

As I said, several elements have to be taken in account before making any judgment

The_Metatron wrote:I suspect it would be too easy to find errors, or anomalies, which would serve to reduce this to guesswork, and not science.

Any science that studies body (outside) can do mistakes, since you can always have exceptions, like accidents, posture caused by an internal problem, etc.
Morphopsychology gives an indication, a direction. Of course, the complete caracter can not be defined by someone's face, and I'm glad that's the case. But it can help giving a first impression on someone.

Grace · **#11** by **Grace** » Sep 16, 2011 7:41 pm

I don't think I want to rely on that, and I've already been judged incorrectly once. I don't want that to ever happen again.

katja z · **#12** by **katja z** » Sep 16, 2011 8:52 pm

Wait, some people have talked about "reading faces" and I think we have a misunderstanding here. Morphopsychology is supposed to be not about expressions, but about the correlation between someone's facial features and their character traits. I call bullshit on this one.

Especially after what I've just read about it's "inventor" - that the shape of someone's face is a result of "vital forces" working within their body (see here).

Aban, think about this. Your observations are full of confounding factors. Even if you were simply guessing, you would be right sometimes. But you are not just guessing - you observe people's behaviour, their posture, their facial expressions etc., and this is what gives you some clues about their character - not how their nose is hooked or what shape their chin is.

Here's a quote from Corman (the inventor of morphopsychology) I've found on the French Wikipedia - it refers to one of the "laws" he proposed, the "law of dilation-retraction":

Since every living being is in interaction with its environment, if the circumstances are favourable, the physical and physiological structures tend to expand; in the opposite case, they shrink.

ETA I suspect the passage should actually read "psychological and physiological structures", but this is how it's quoted in Wikipedia and I was too lazy to hunt for an online version of the book.

Olivier · **#13** by **Olivier** » Dec 31, 2011 9:05 am

Hi
Sorry to jump in the conversation a few months after it started but I just found it during a google search... As a matter of fact, I am a morphopsychologist who just started a blog about it. In fact I just started a blog about it yesterday www.faceandprofile.com.
I came to this because, as aban said, I am just interested in people and I surprinsingly found a consistency to it. I know how you feel when you hear about "vital forces" but how should we call it then? Anyway, one problem is calling it a science, because it is not really a science. There is some laws but the complexity of the human mind is difficult to put in boxes so those laws are nothing without an trained eye. That's why I call it a "craft" more than a science.
Anyway, I would be happy to discuss it and if one of you is interested in a quick portrait, I am your guy!
Olivier