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Do blue-eyed men truly prefer blue-eyed women? And do brown-eyed men really have no preference? As you might expect, this alleged inclination has to do with securing visible proof of paternity: it’s rare for two blue-eyed parents to produce a child with a phenotype of brown eyes (though it can happen). A study published in Norway in 2006 says men with blue-eyes do indeed unconsciously seek out women whose irises are lacking melanin, and explains:
A group of 443 young adults of both sexes and different eye colors were asked to report the eye color of their romantic partners. Blue-eyed men were the group with the largest proportion of partners of the same eye color.
According to Bruno Laeng and colleagues, “It is remarkable that blue-eyed men showed such a clear preference for women with the same eye color, given that the present experiment did not request participants to choose prospective sexual mates, but only to provide their aesthetic or attractiveness responses…based on face close-up photographs.” Blue-eyed men may have unconsciously learned to value a physical trait that can facilitate recognition of own kin.
Makes enough sense. But what of people with aniridia, or people with heterochromia (like Kate Bosworth, David Bowie, and Christopher Walken)? Might have to resort to Level 4 background checks and straight-up pedigree…In the meantime, here’s a fun eye color calculator.
Comments (13)
Comment
Sure it can happen, I have green eyes, my husband had blue eyes, and both our kids have brown eyes. We noticed that as soon as we adopted them.
posted by Miss Cellania on 8-3-2007 at 10:27 pm
I think this study may hold more ground if it was not performed in Norway.
posted by Ben on 8-4-2007 at 2:20 am
Wow Cool! I just found out something about myself. I looked into the heterochromia sites to see if there’s any mention about my “funny” eye coloring. It mentions “Heterochromia iridis” which describes different colors occurring within the same iris. My eyes are blue at the outer edges but brown around the pupils. I once had to ask my mother, “What eye color should I put?” when I was filling out a form, she said “blue because from a distance they look blue-ish.” It never occurred to me there would be a name for it.
posted by Tdave on 8-4-2007 at 4:21 am
Thought you might be interested to know that David Bowie does not have heterochromia. He was punched in the face by a friend wearing a ring when he was young and had to get several surgeries to fix the damage. In actuality, his pupil just is permanently dilated. Just an interesting tidbit, I suppose.
posted by Mattie on 8-4-2007 at 7:20 am
Took the exam - said I should have had brown eyes. They’re not. They’re hazel, with blus outside shading to green with gold flecks.
My grandma said the gold was a sign I was a child of the devil… or perhaps a son of the Greenwood.
She never did like my father, hence the ‘devil’ comment.
posted by Doc on 8-4-2007 at 10:13 am
Speaking about Bowie’s eyes and Norway: His concert at the Norwegian Wood festival in Oslo was interrupted by a freak accident as someone in the audience threw a lollipop which got stuck in his eye. (With some googling you’ll find the pictures.)
Maybe Norwegians really do care more about eye colour than others…
posted by Dagfinn on 8-6-2007 at 3:26 am
I have a brother and a sister and none of us have either of my parents eye color. My sister’s eyes are brown, my brother’s greenish blue and mine are blue while my mom has dark hazel eyes and my dad has greyish brown. Also, we don’t share their hair color. My dad has brown and my mom has dark blonde where as both my brother and my sister have red hair and I have light blonde. None of us really look all that alike unless we’re all together, then it some how works.
posted by Sally on 8-6-2007 at 8:47 am
My mom has green hazel eyes, and my dad has blue…mine are some strange mood ring of indecision, sometimes icy blue, sometimes tealish green, sometimes grey. My brother has a blue hazel that I’ve never seen on anyone else…
posted by natlynn on 8-6-2007 at 10:12 am
I think its actually blue eyed women prefer blue eyed men! (or green, in my case)
posted by ac on 8-6-2007 at 11:35 am
I think all bets are off when there is a redhead involved. My parents have blue eyes, so does my brother. My eyes are brown but if you look under sunlight the same color as my hair (my hair is bright red)– this is not nearly as scary as it sounds.
posted by MJ on 8-6-2007 at 12:40 pm
Even if you prefer a spouse with a particular color eyes, your kids’ eyecolor may not turn out as you expect.
My mother’s parents had five children in all, none with exactly the same eye color. My gradfather had brown eyes. My grandmother had blue eyes. My oldest aunt has blue eyes, my second aunt has pale green eyes, my late uncle had extremely dark (almost black) eyes, my mother has hazel eyes, and my youngest aunt has medium-brown eyes.
My father has brown eyes, but only one of my three siblings has brown eyes. The rest of us have hazel that consists of fairly dark green with brown around the pupil.
My brown-eyed sister and her brown-eyed Italian husband have 4 children. Three of them have brown eyes, and one has very blue eyes. Go figure.
posted by ansav on 8-6-2007 at 2:09 pm
As non-Norwegian blue-eyed male, I can say that I tend towards women with blue eyes. Maybe it’s because the odds of blue eyes are a lot lower than brown.
posted by Jon on 8-7-2007 at 10:36 am
Well, my dad has brown almost black hair with brown eyes, and my mom had blond hair when she was younger, but it turned light brown and light blue eyes. I have red hair and green eyes. My brother has blondish brown hair and brown eyes. Our best bet for how that happened is that I have Irish (red headed) ancestry on my mom’s side, and a recessive red hair gene on my dad’s. (My grandmother apparently pulled out all of her red hairs- she had mostly brown hair, that she could find on her head in her mid-teens because having red hair at that time in France was seen as being a sign of the Devil.) But literally, no one on either side of my family has green eyes, not even hazel. (mine border on hazel, but they’re pretty green, they get more golden at the center)
posted by greenstrawberries on 9-11-2007 at 2:56 am