![Physiognomy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Physiognomy.jpg)
Physiognomy (from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, , meaning "nature", and , meaning "judge" or "interpreter") is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the
face
The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may aff ...
. The term can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain without reference to its implied characteristics—as in the physiognomy of an individual plant (see
plant life-form
Plant life-form schemes constitute a way of classifying plants alternatively to the ordinary species-genus-family scientific classification. In colloquial speech, plants may be classified as trees, shrubs, herbs (forbs and graminoids), etc. The s ...
) or of a plant
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
(see
vegetation
Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...
).
Physiognomy as a practice meets the contemporary definition of
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...
and it is so regarded among academic circles because of its unsupported claims; popular belief in the practice of physiognomy is nonetheless still widespread. The practice was well-accepted by
ancient Greek philosophers
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...
, but fell into disrepute in the Middle Ages while practised by vagabonds and
mountebanks. It revived and was popularised by
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar (or Caspar) Lavater (; 15 November 1741 – 2 January 1801) was a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian.
Early life
Lavater was born in Zürich, and was educated at the '' Gymnasium'' there, where J. J. ...
, before falling from favor in the late 19th century.
[How your looks betray your personality](_blank)
– ''New Scientist'' (Magazine issue 2695) – 11 February 2009: Roger Highfield, Richard Wiseman, and Rob Jenkins Physiognomy in the 19th century is particularly noted as a basis for
scientific racism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
.
Physiognomy is sometimes referred to as 'anthroposcopy', a term originating in the 19th century.
Ancient
Notions of the relationship between an individual's outward appearance and inner character are historically ancient, and occasionally appear in early
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
poetry.
Siddhar
The Siddhar (Tamil: சித்தர் ''cittar'', from Sanskrit: ''siddha'') in Tamils, Tamil tradition is a perfected individual, who has attained spiritual powers called ''siddhi''.
Historically, Siddhar also refers to the people who we ...
s from ancient India defined as identifying personal characteristics with body features. Chinese physiognomy or
Chinese face reading
Mien shiang ( meaning face () reading ()) is a physiognomic and fortune-telling practice in Chinese culture and traditional Chinese medicine which purports to determine aspects of person's character, personality, and (future) health by analyzing ...
() reaches back at least to the
Spring and Autumn period
The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history from approximately 770 to 476 BC (or according to some authorities until 403 BC) which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou period. The period's name derives fr ...
.
Early indications of a developed physiognomic theory appear in 5th century BC
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, with the works of
Zopyrus
Zopyrus (; el, Ζώπυρος) (fl. 522 BC-500 BC) was a Persian nobleman mentioned in Herodotus' '' Histories''.
He was son of Megabyzus I, who helped Darius I in his ascension. According to Herodotus, when Babylon revolted against the ru ...
(who was featured in
a dialogue by
Phaedo of Elis
Phaedo of Elis (; also ''Phaedon''; grc-gre, Φαίδων ὁ Ἠλεῖος, ''gen''.: Φαίδωνος; fl. 4th century BCE) was a Greek philosopher. A native of Elis, he was captured in war as a boy and sold into slavery. He subsequently c ...
), an expert in the art. By the 4th century BC, the philosopher
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
frequently referred to theory and literature concerning the relationship of appearance to character. Aristotle was receptive to such an idea, evidenced by a passage in his ''Prior Analytics'':
The first systematic physiognomic treatise is a slim volume, (''Physiognomonics''), ascribed to Aristotle, but probably of his "school", rather than created by the philosopher. The volume is divided into two parts, conjectured as originally two separate works. The first section discusses arguments drawn from nature or other races, and concentrates on the concept of human behavior. The second section focuses on animal behavior, dividing the animal kingdom into male and female types. From these are deduced correspondences between human form and character.
After Aristotle, the major extant works in physiognomy are:
*
Polemo of Laodicea, (2nd century AD), in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
*
Adamantius the Sophist
Adamantius or Adamantios may refer to:
People Only name
* Adamantius (Pseudo-Origen), 4th-century Christian writer
* Adamantius (physician), 5th-century Jewish physician from Alexandria
* Adamantius (praefectus urbi), 5th-century politician of t ...
, (4th century), in Greek
*An anonymous
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
author, (about 4th century)
Ancient Greek mathematician, astronomer, and scientist
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samos, Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionians, Ionian Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher and the eponymou ...
—who some believe originated physiognomics—once rejected a prospective follower named Cylon because, to Pythagoras, his appearance indicated bad character.
[Riedweg, Christop, ''Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching, and Influence''.]
After inspecting Socrates, a physiognomist announced he was given to intemperance, sensuality, and violent bursts of passion—which was so contrary to Socrates's image, his students accused the physiognomist of lying. Socrates put the issue to rest by saying, originally, he was given to all these vices, but had particularly strong self-discipline.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
![Porta59](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Porta59.jpg)
The term 'physiognomy' was common in
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
, often written as or , as in the ''
Tale of Beryn'', a spurious addition to ''
The Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''Masterpiece, ...
'': .
Physiognomy's validity was once widely accepted.
Michael Scot
Michael Scot (Latin: Michael Scotus; 1175 – ) was a Scottish mathematician and scholar in the Middle Ages. He was educated at Oxford and Paris, and worked in Bologna and Toledo, where he learned Arabic. His patron was Frederick II of the H ...
, a court scholar for
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II (German language, German: ''Friedrich''; Italian language, Italian: ''Federico''; Latin: ''Federicus''; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Em ...
, wrote in the early 13th century concerning the subject. English universities taught physiognomy until
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
outlawed "beggars and vagabonds playing 'subtile, crafty and unlawful games such as physnomye or '
palmestrye'" in 1530 or 1531. Around this time, scholastic leaders settled on the more erudite Greek form 'physiognomy' and began to discourage the entire concept of 'fisnamy'.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
dismissed physiognomy in the early 16th century as "false", a
chimera
Chimera, Chimaera, or Chimaira (Greek for " she-goat") originally referred to:
* Chimera (mythology), a fire-breathing monster of Ancient Lycia said to combine parts from multiple animals
* Mount Chimaera, a fire-spewing region of Lycia or Cilici ...
with "no scientific foundation".
Nevertheless, Leonardo believed that lines caused by facial expressions could indicate personality traits. For example, he wrote that "those who have deep and noticeable lines between the eyebrows are irascible".
[ Unabridged republication of ''The Genius of Leonardo da Vinci'', originally published by Orion Press, New York, 1961.]
Modern
Johann Kaspar Lavater
![Johann Kaspar Lavater](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Johann_Kaspar_Lavater.jpg)
The principal promoter of physiognomy in modern times was the Swiss pastor
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar (or Caspar) Lavater (; 15 November 1741 – 2 January 1801) was a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian.
Early life
Lavater was born in Zürich, and was educated at the '' Gymnasium'' there, where J. J. ...
(1741–1801) who was briefly a friend of
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
. Lavater's essays on physiognomy were first published in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
in 1772 and gained great popularity. These influential essays were translated into
French and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
.
Thomas Browne
![Sirthomasbrowne](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Sirthomasbrowne.png)
Lavater found confirmation of his ideas from the English physician-philosopher
Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), and the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
Giambattista Della Porta
Giambattista della Porta (; 1535 – 4 February 1615), also known as Giovanni Battista Della Porta, was an Italian scholar, polymath and playwright who lived in Naples at the time of the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution and Reformation.
Giamb ...
(1535–1615). Browne in his ''
Religio Medici
''Religio Medici'' (''The Religion of a Doctor'') by Sir Thomas Browne is a spiritual testament and early psychological self-portrait. Published in 1643 after an unauthorized version was distributed the previous year, it became a European best-s ...
'' (1643) discusses the possibility of the discernment of inner qualities from the outer appearance of the face, thus:
He reaffirmed his physiognomic beliefs in ''
Christian Morals'' (''circa'' 1675):
Browne also introduced the word
caricature
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, a ...
into the English language, whence much of physiognomical belief attempted to entrench itself by illustrative means, in particular through visual political satire.
Della Porta's works are well represented in the
Library of Sir Thomas Browne
The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of the Library of Sir Thomas Browne highlights the erudition of the physician, philosopher and encyclopedist, Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682). It also illustrates the proliferation, distribution and availability of ...
including ''Of Celestial Physiognomy'', in which Porta argued that it was not the stars but a person's temperament that influences their facial appearance and character. In ''De humana physiognomia ''(1586), Porta used woodcuts of animals to illustrate human characteristics. Both Della Porta and Browne adhered to the '
doctrine of signatures
The doctrine of signatures, dating from the time of Dioscorides and Galen, states that herbs resembling various parts of the body can be used by herbalists to treat ailments of those body parts. A theological justification, as stated by botanists ...
'—that is, the belief that the physical structures of nature such as a plant's roots, stem, and flower, were indicative keys (or 'signatures') to their medicinal potentials.
Lavater's critics
Lavater received mixed reactions from scientists, with some accepting his research and others criticizing it.
For example, the harshest critic was scientist
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) was a German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany. He is remembered for ...
, who said
pathognomy
Pathognomy is 'a ‘''semiotik''’ of the transient features of someone's face or body, be it voluntary or involuntary'. Examples of this can be laughter and winking to the involuntary such as sneezing or coughing. By studying the features or ...
, discovering the character by observing the behaviour, was more effective. Writer
Hannah More
Hannah More (2 February 1745 – 7 September 1833) was an English religious writer, philanthropist, poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, who wrote on moral and religious subjects. Born in Bristol, she taught at a ...
complained to
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician.
He had Strawb ...
, "In vain do we boast ... that philosophy had broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition; and yet, at this very time ... Lavater's physiognomy books sell at fifteen guineas a set."
Period of popularity
![A bizarre physiognomical caricature with a figure pointing t Wellcome V0017234](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/A_bizarre_physiognomical_caricature_with_a_figure_pointing_t_Wellcome_V0017234.jpg)
The popularity of physiognomy grew throughout the first quarter of the 18th century and into the 19th century. It was discussed seriously by academics, who believed in its potential.
Use in fiction
Many European novelists used physiognomy in the descriptions of their characters,
notably
Balzac,
Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
and portrait artists, such as
Joseph Ducreux
Joseph, Baron Ducreux (26 June 1735 – 24 July 1802) was a French noble, portrait painter, pastelist, portrait miniature, miniaturist, and engraving, engraver, who was a successful portraitist at the court of Louis XVI of France, and resumed his ...
. A host of 19th-century English authors were influenced by the idea, notably evident in the detailed physiognomic descriptions of characters in the novels of
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
,
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...
, and
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature.
She enlisted i ...
.
In addition to Thomas Browne, other literary authors associated with
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
who made physiognomical observations in their writings include the
romantic novelist
Amelia Opie, and the
travelogue
Travelogue may refer to:
Genres
* Travel literature, a record of the experiences of an author travelling
* Travel documentary
A travel documentary is a documentary film, television program, or online series that describes travel in general or ...
author
George Borrow
George Henry Borrow (5 July 1803 – 26 July 1881) was an English writer of novels and of travel based on personal experiences in Europe. His travels gave him a close affinity with the Romani people of Europe, who figure strongly in his work. Hi ...
.
Physiognomy is a central, implicit assumption underlying the plot of
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
's ''
The Picture of Dorian Gray
''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' is a philosophical fiction, philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine''.''Th ...
''. In 19th-century American literature, physiognomy figures prominently in the short stories of
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
.
Phrenology
Phrenology
Phrenology () is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking." In ''Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience'', pp. 195–203. C ...
, also considered a form of physiognomy, was created around 1800 by German physician
Franz Joseph Gall
Franz Josef Gall (; 9 March 175822 August 1828) was a German neuroanatomist, physiologist, and pioneer in the study of the localization of mental functions in the brain.
Claimed as the founder of the pseudoscience of phrenology, Gall was an ea ...
and
Johann Spurzheim
Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (31 December 1776 – 10 November 1832) was a German physician who became one of the chief proponents of phrenology, which was developed c. 1800 by Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828).
Biography
Spurzheim was born near Tr ...
, and was widely popular in the 19th century in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. In the U.S., physician James W. Redfield published his ''Comparative Physiognomy'' in 1852, illustrating with 330 engravings the "Resemblances between Men and Animals". He finds these in appearance and (often metaphorically) character, e.g. Germans to Lions, Negroes to Elephants and Fishes, Chinamen to Hogs, Yankees to Bears, Jews to Goats.
In the late 19th century, it became associated with phrenology and consequently discredited and rejected.
Nevertheless, the German physiognomist Carl Huter (1861–1912) became popular in Germany with his concept of physiognomy, called "psycho-physiognomy".
Criminology
During the late 19th century, English psychometrician
Sir Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton, FRS FRAI (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto- ...
attempted to define physiognomic characteristics of health, disease, beauty, and criminality, via a method of
composite photography
Compositing is the process or technique of combining visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously ca ...
. Galton's process involved the photographic superimposition of two or more faces by multiple exposures. After averaging together photographs of violent criminals, he found that the composite appeared "more respectable" than any of the faces comprising it; this was likely due to the irregularities of the skin across the constituent images being averaged out in the final blend. With the advent of computer technology during the early 1990s, Galton's composite technique has been adopted and greatly improved using computer graphics software.
Physiognomy also became of use in the field of
Criminology
Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...
through efforts made by Italian army doctor and scientist,
Cesare Lombroso
Cesare Lombroso (, also ; ; born Ezechia Marco Lombroso; 6 November 1835 – 19 October 1909) was an Italian criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the establis ...
. Lombroso, during the mid 19th century, championed the notion that "criminality was inherited and that criminals could be identified by physical attributes such as hawk-like noses and bloodshot eyes".
Lombroso took inspiration from the recently released ideologies and studies of Darwin and carried many of the misunderstandings that he had regarding evolution into the propagation of the use of physiognomy in criminology.
His logic stemmed from the idea that "criminals were 'throwbacks' in the phylogenetic tree to early phases of evolution".
Bearing this in mind, it is reasonable to conclude that "according to Lombroso, a regressive characteristic united the genius, the madman and the delinquent; they differed in the intensity of this characteristic and, naturally in the degree of development of the positive qualities".
He believed that one could determine whether one was of savage nature just by their physical characteristics. Based on his findings, "Lombroso proposed that the "born criminal" could be distinguished by physical atavistic ''stigmata'', such as:
* Large jaws, forward projection of jaw
* Low sloping forehead
* High cheekbones
* Flattened or upturned nose
* Handle-shaped ears
* Hawk-like noses or fleshy lips
* Hard shifty eyes
* Scanty beard or baldness
* Insensitivity to pain
* Long arms relative to lower limbs
This interest in the relationship between criminology and physiognomy began upon Lombroso's first interaction with "a notorious Calabrian thief and arsonist" named Giuseppe Villella.
Lombroso was particularly taken by many striking personality characteristics that Villella possessed; agility and cynicism being some of them. Villella’s alleged crimes are disputed and Lombroso’s research is seen by many as northern Italian racism toward southern Italians. Upon Villella's death, Lombroso "conducted a post-mortem and discovered that his subject had an indentation at the back of his skull, which resembled that found in apes".
He later referred to this anomaly as the "median occipital depression".
Lombroso used the term "atavism" to describe these primitive, ape-like behaviors that he found in many of those whom he deemed prone to criminality. As he continued analyzing the data he gathered from said autopsy and comparing and contrasting these results with previous cases, he inferred that certain physical characteristics allowed for some individuals to have a greater "propensity to offend and were also savage throwbacks to early man".
These sorts of examinations yielded far-reaching consequences for various scientific and medical communities at the time; "the ''natural genesis'' of crime implied that the criminal personality should be regarded as a particular form of psychiatric disease".
Furthermore, these ideals promoted the idea that when a crime is committed, it is no longer seen as "free will" but instead a result of one's genetic pre-disposition to savagery.
He had numerous case studies to corroborate many of his findings due to the fact that he was the head of an insane asylum at Pesaro. He was easily able to study people from various walks of life and was thus able to further define criminal types. Because his theories primarily focused on anatomy and anthropological information, the idea of degeneracy being a source of atavism was not explored till later on in his criminological endeavors.
These "new and improved" theories led to the notion "that the born criminal had pathological symptoms in common with the moral imbecile and the epileptic, and this led him to expand his typology to include the insane criminal and the epileptic criminal". In addition, "the insane criminal type
as said to
As, AS, A. S., A/S or similar may refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
* A. S. Byatt (born 1936), English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer
* "As" (song), by Stevie Wonder
* , a Spanish sports newspaper
* , an academic male voic ...
include the alcoholic, the mattoid, and the hysterical criminal".
Lombroso's ideologies are now recognized as flawed, and regarded as pseudo-science. Many have remarked on the overt sexist and racist overtones of his research, and denounce it for those reasons alone.
In spite of many of his theories being discredited, he is still hailed as the father of "scientific criminology". Modern criminology finds many of his teachings incorrect, but he had a great influence over criminology and physiognomy at the time.
Contemporary usage
In France, the concept developed in the 20th century under the name morphopsychology, developed by Louis Corman (1901–1995), a
French psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
who argued that the workings of
vital forces within the human body resulted in different facial shapes and forms.
/ref> For example, full and round body shapes are considered the expression of the instinct of expansion while the hollow or flat shapes are an expression of self-preservation. The term "morphopsychology" is a translation of the French word ''morphopsychologie'', which Louis Corman coined in 1937 when he wrote his first book on the subject, ''Quinze leçons de morphopsychologie'' (Fifteen Lessons of Morphopsychology). Corman was influenced by the French medical doctor, doctor Claude Sigaud (1862–1921), incorporating his idea of "dilation and retraction" into morphopsychology.
Scientific investigation
Research in the 1990s indicated that three elements of personality in particular – power, warmth and honesty – can be reliably inferred.[Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas and Adrian Furnham. ''The Psychology of Personnel Selection''. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Cambridge Books Online. Web. 07 April 2016. pages 13-14]
Some evidence indicated that the pattern of whorls in the scalp had some correlation to male homosexuality, though subsequent research has largely refuted the findings on hair whorl patterns.
A February 2009 article in ''New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...
'' magazine reported that physiognomy is living a small revival, with research papers trying to find links between personality traits and facial traits. A study of 90 ice hockey players found a statistically significant correlation between a wider face—a greater than average cheekbone-to-cheekbone distance relative to the distance between brow and upper lip—and the number of penalty minutes a player received for violent acts like slashing, elbowing, checking from behind, and fighting.
This revival has been confirmed in the 2010s with the rise of machine learning for facial recognition. For instance, researchers have claimed that it is possible to predict upper body strength and some personality traits (propensity to aggression) only by looking at the width of the face. Political orientation can also be reliably predicted.
In 2017, a controversial study claimed that an algorithm could detect sexual orientation 'more accurately than humans' (in 81% of the tested cases for men and 71% for women). A director of research of the Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGB ...
(HRC) accused the study of being "junk science" to the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. The director, an 'equity and inclusion strategist' with no scientific background, was criticized by the researchers for "premature judgement". The researchers criticized
and HRC's press release for falsely stating the paper was not peer reviewed. In early 2018, researchers, among them two specialists of AI working at Google (one of the two on face recognition), issued a reportedly contradicting study based on a survey of 8,000 Americans using
crowd-sourcing platform. The survey yielded many traits helping to discriminate between gay and straight respondents with a series of yes/no questions. These traits had actually less to do with morphology than with grooming, presentation, and lifestyle (makeup, facial hair, glasses, angle of pictures taken of self, etc.). For more information of this sexual orientation issue in general, see
.
In 2020, a study on the use of consumer facial images for marketing research purposes concluded that deep learning on facial images can extract a variety of personal information relevant to marketers and so users' facial images could become a basis for
. According to the study, while most of facial images' predictive power is attributable to basic demographics (age, gender, race) extracted from the face,
all contribute to prediction quality beyond demographics.
Critics of physiognomy say that the human mind tends to extrapolate emotions from facial expressions (e.g.,
) and physiognomy, with its assumption of permanent characteristics, is only an over-generalization of this skill. Also, if one classifies a person as untrustworthy due to facial features, ''and treats them as such'', that person may eventually behave in an untrustworthy way toward the person holding this belief (see
).
.