--- title: Yes, You Really Do Have a 'Type,' Science Says description: Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder? A new study says yes, discovering that 50% of people's preferences for faces is unique to them, and who we find attractive is most strongly influenced by our life experiences and individual environment. canonical: https://time.com/4057616/yes-you-really-do-have-a-type-science-says/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-01T16:10:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:39.785Z article:section: Health og:title: Yes, You Really Do Have a 'Type,' Science Says og:description: Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder? A new study says yes, discovering that 50% of people's preferences for faces is unique to them, and who we find attractive is most strongly influenced by our life experiences and individual environment. og:url: https://time.com/4057616/yes-you-really-do-have-a-type-science-says/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff67d90741216d17/6988666dcf40a8389ac40012/hands.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3543 og:image:height: 1993 og:image:alt: 187438075 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Yes, You Really Do Have a 'Type,' Science Says twitter:description: Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder? A new study says yes, discovering that 50% of people's preferences for faces is unique to them, and who we find attractive is most strongly influenced by our life experiences and individual environment. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff67d90741216d17/6988666dcf40a8389ac40012/hands.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Yes, You Really Do Have a 'Type,' Science Says > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. 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It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now [Watch (HLS stream): A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8) (3:13)  _Published 2014-08-20. A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Oct 1, 2015 4:10 PM UTC  Partnership Partnership Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Oct 1, 2015 4:10 PM UTC Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder? A [new study](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.048) says yes, discovering that 50% of people’s preferences for faces is unique to them, and who we find attractive is most strongly influenced by our life experiences. “If you were to rate faces \[for attractiveness\] and I were to rate the same faces, we would agree about 50% of the time,” says study author Jeremy Wilmer, an assistant professor of psychology at [Wellesley College](https://best-colleges.time.com/money/schools/wellesley-college) whose new research was published Thursday in the journal _Current Biology_. The two-part study first had around 35,000 people rate faces for attractiveness on the website [Testmybrain.org](http://testmybrain.org/). Prior research has suggested that people generally agree that symmetrical faces are better-looking. That, and other factors, may account for the 50% consensus on beauty. As for the other 50% of faces? That’s where the science really gets interesting. In the second part of the study, the researchers studied the facial preferences of 547 pairs of identical twins and 214 pairs of fraternal twins. The hope was that by studying people who are genetically the same (or at least very similar) and who grew up and in the same environment, they would gain some insight into the nature or nurture effects of where the “eye of the beholder” variation in attractiveness perception comes from. If something is really influenced by genes you would expect identical twins to be more similar to each other than the fraternal twins, Wilmer says. On the other hand, if family environment is highly influential, the researchers would expect fraternal twins to be quite similar to each other in preferences. But that’s not what they found. “In our case, we found that even though identical twins share all of their genes and their family environment they were really, really different from each other in their facial aesthetic preferences,” says Wilmer. It’s likely personal experiences inform who we find attractive, and because they are so personal, we can greatly differ from someone who—on paper—is quite similar to us, the research suggests. So what types of experiences influence who we find attractive? The researchers didn’t study this in their paper, but study author Laura Germine of Massachusetts General Hospital says that based on previous literature on this subject, they have some theories. “\[Prior research\] has found things like, if you take a face and you pair it with positive information, that face then looks more attractive, and faces that are similar to it also look more attractive and vice versa,” she says. “So you can imagine as you go through life and you form relationships and have friends and people you have a more positive relationship with, you may come to find their face characteristics more attractive, and then other people who look similar to them are then more attractive to you.” “Exposure to certain faces makes them seem more attractive,” she adds. That means a face that is very different from a face that you have never seen before tends to be judged as less attractive. It also means the kinds of faces you are exposed to in your work environment, in your relationships or even the face of your spouse could shift the kind of faces that you find attractive, she says. Basically, who you find attractive may be less about where you grew up and where you went to school and more influenced by experiences that are _very_ unique to you. More research is still needed, but the study suggests beauty really may be in the eye of the beholder. ### Twin Portraits  Gao Rongguo  Gao Rongguo  Gao Rongguo  Gao Rongguo  Gao Rongguo  Gao Rongguo  Gao Rongguo ## Transcript Sexual pleasure is only one part of what men and women want from each other. They want intimacy, they want closeness, they want understanding, they want comfort, they want fun, and they want somebody who really cares about them beyond going to bed with them, and I think people are always seeking that. In every generation. [ MUSIC ] My name is Shirley Zussman. I just reached a hundred years of age, and I am a practicing sex therapist. I was invited with my husband to a lecture in New Jersey, in 1966. Masters and Johnson were the speakers. No body knew about them. Human sexual response had just been published, what I saw was a couple who will say that people had problems in an area in their lives that was very important and they were recognizing that it was all not just. Glamorous and wonderful to be sexual. One had to almost had to learn how to be a good partner and to endure the pleasure not only for yourself but for each other. And I thought we can do that. Why can't we do that? And we applied for training with Masters and Johnson at that time. The patients that came to us were people who read the paper. The only way they do anything about the work that was being done there. And the problems they came with, was somewhat different than the problems they come with today. Mostly, women came because would put out orgasmic, they didn't know how to achieve an orgasm, but they wanted one. It was so over that ,. Goal they had for themselves and how do I get there. That was one Masters and Johnson's contribution that there was a relatively simple way to start learning about your body. In other words, get, get to know your, who you are sexually and physically and that was. And encouragement for masturbation for learning what makes you feel good. I see a big change in the we view casual sex. In the 60's I think it was not just casual it was frantic. I'm shocked at the lack of connection with people; because of iPhones, even I love my iPhone. There is so much less actual physical connection, there's less touching, there's less talking, there's less holding, there's less looking, [ INAUDIBLE ]. People get pleasure from looking at each other. But the most common problem, I would say, in the sex therapy that I live in, is a lack of desire. You have to look at your priorities. You have to decide what is important to make you feel good about yourself and your life. And to help make your partner feel good and to establish something that is gratifying that really fills a need that we all have to be close to somebody. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4057616/yes-you-really-do-have-a-type-science-says/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4057616/yes-you-really-do-have-a-type-science-says/"},"headline":"Yes, You Really Do Have a 'Type,' Science Says","datePublished":"2015-10-01T16:10:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:41:39.785Z","description":"A new study confirms beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that what individuals find to be attractive is likely incredibly specific to their life experiences","url":"https://time.com/4057616/yes-you-really-do-have-a-type-science-says/","keywords":["Research","beauty"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff67d90741216d17/6988666dcf40a8389ac40012/hands.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff67d90741216d17/6988666dcf40a8389ac40012/hands.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"187438075","caption":"187438075","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4057616/yes-you-really-do-have-a-type-science-says/","name":"Yes, You Really Do Have a 'Type,' Science Says"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now","description":"A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/uJFYIrvP/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-20T13:40:15.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4057616/yes-you-really-do-have-a-type-science-says/","duration":"PT3M13S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4057616/yes-you-really-do-have-a-type-science-says/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```