Does Eye Color Indicate Intelligence and Personality? What Are Your Eyes Telling the World?

New Research and Studies Suggest There Is a Correlation Between Eye Color, Iris Pattern, and Personality



As sometimes happens in my quest for information, I recently came across several articles proclaiming that eye color and iris pattern of the eye can indicate intelligence, personality traits, and one’s health condition.

I have heard about doctors being able to tell about a person’s health condition by examining their eyes before, but this was the first I have heard that one’s personality or intelligence could be predicted, or diagnosed if you prefer, from the color of one’s eyes.

It was a surprise to me to learn that several people and organizations have actually conducted studies on the subject of eye color and iris pattern in relation to personality and/or intelligence.

Mats Larsson, a graduate student in psychology at Orebro University in Sweden has connected iris patterns of the eye to personality traits. Also, a group of Czech researchers will soon have the results of a study published in which they determined a person’s ability to dominate over others according to their eye color. Indeed, I could almost meet the word requirement for a HubPages article just by listing every person and organization that has done research of any kind on this subject; so let us get on to the findings.

Variations In Eye Color and How They Are Perceived

Europeans have the most variation in eye color. The most common eye color is brown, the second most common eye color is blue or gray, and the least common, or most rare eye color is green.

A survey was conducted by CyberPulse, a division of Impulse Research Corporation in Los Angeles, and commissioned by CIBA Vision. The survey questioned 1,016 women ages 16 to 35. The results found that women often associate different eye colors with specific personality traits.

The above study found that 34% of participants considered people with brown eyes intelligent, kind, and trustworthy. In contrast, people with blue eyes were considered kind, sweet, and sexy, but only 7% of participants described blue-eyed people as intelligent. Finally, 29% of research participants said they considered green eyes, the sexiest of all the different colors, and their owners to be creative, sexy -- and a bit devious.

A List of What Some Researchers Believe the Different Eye Colors Indicate

Brown Eyes: Outgoing, vivacious, and affable. People with brown eyes are often individualists who are steadfast, serious, practical, self sufficient, with a somewhat retiring nature, and a strong sense of commitment. Often attractive, adorable, and enjoys making new friends. Kind, loyal and devoted to the special people in their lives, likes to cheer people up, and known as the best kissers of all.



Hazel Eyes: Determined, imaginative, loves adventure and trying new things, often has a boundless inner vitality. People with hazel eyes are often risk takers yet profound thinkers, courageous in the face of adversity, aware of their own limitations, responsible, but often have a serious selfish streak.



Green Eyes: Have an air of mystery and a quiet self-sufficiency. People with green eyes are often unpredictable, yet slow to anger. They often have unlimited patience, capable of great emotional restraint. They are original, creative, highly intelligent, intellectual, and can easily employ serious concentration even in highly distracting environments. People with green eyes love freedom, project sex appeal, and perform well under great pressure. They tend to be the happiest of all the different eye colors. Passionate and tending towards long-term relationships both romantic and platonic, they are generally attractive and sensual.



Blue Eyes: Pose high intellect, devotion to noble causes, sincerity, self-sufficiency, and are sentimental. People with blue eyes get easily bogged down by routine, often hold grudges, are moody, but have great stamina, and generally have a bright and happy nature.



Violet Eyes: Highly imaginative and creative, possess lots of self-esteem, and they are often perfectionists with high ideals. People with violet eyes generally have lots of charisma.



Gray Eyes: People with gray eyes are thought to be conformists, quiet and self-effacing, but usually patient in waiting for self-opportunities, as well as calculating and deceptive. People with gray eyes tend to be courageous, but obstinate. They are uncertain in affection.



Black Eyes: Have a dynamic character full of vitality, people with black eyes tond to be hot-tempered, impulsive and often seek dangerous adventures. They command respect, exhibit great dignity, but they are often pretentious, secretive and mysterious.


The Iris Pattern and Color of Every Eye Is Unique



Here the crypts and furrows are more visible.

No Two People Have the Exact Same Eye Color or Iris Pattern

Since no two people have the same fingerprints or footprints, it should be no surprise that no two people have the same exact eye color or iris pattern either.

What may be surprising is that researchers believe every single person with blue eyes originated or descends from the same ancestor! Yes, that does seem surprising to me. There are a lot of people with blue eyes in this world and to think that they all descend from the same ancestor seems pretty amazing.

Researchers have determined that eye color changes over time because the eyes do not constantly and consistently produce pigment. Well, I already knew eye color can change, not only from the eye color a baby is born with to something else when they get older, but eye color can change even in older children or adults over time.

My eyes were blue as a child, but as I got older they became green. They were green by the time I reached 17 years. My mother’s eyes were green and now my daughter’s eyes are also green. Not surprisingly genetics play a big part in a person’s eye color.

However, it is not just one gene that determines eye color, but a combination of genes which is why some people may have two colors or more in their iris if you look closely, and some people may even have different colored irises in each eye.

Examples of Iris Patterns and Color



Below image: “Left: A smoothly textured iris with no crypts (gaps) between the fibers. Center: A loosely textured iris with a 
large number of crypts. Right: Arrows indicate a contraction furrow extending part way around the iris.” | Source

What Are Furrows and Crypts?

Crypts: Squiggly lines radiating out from the pupil.

Furrows: Circular lines curving around the outer edge of the iris.


More Scientific Than Subjective

Mats Larsson has gotten more scientific about his research regarding the correlation between personality and the color and pattern of the human eye’s iris. He counts the crypts and furrows in a person’s iris. He determined that, “. . . a low frequency of crypts was significantly associated with tender-mindedness, warmth, trust, and positive emotions, whereas more distinct and extended furrows were associated with impulsiveness.”

‘”Still, cautions Larsson, looking deep into people’s eyes won’t give you irrefutable insight into their personality. “We’ve only looked at group effects,” he says. “It’s not possible to describe an individual’s personality from our data.”’

Determining personality and intelligence by examining a person’s eye color and the patterns in one’s iris is still in the early developing stages. With so many studies being conducted by researchers and scientists, be prepared over the next few years to learn what they are discovering about this relatively new and curious practice.

What are your perceptions about eye color? Do you think the descriptions above fit you, or most of the people you know? Do you think in time that it will be possible to determine scientifically what someone’s intelligence and/or personality are by ‘reading’ or examining the irises of their eyes?


What Your Eyes Say About You

Your eyes are [continually] making tiny movements, called saccades, and brief pauses, called fixations as you read and observe different things on the page or in the room around you.

-Psychology Today



Scientists are discovering that eye movement patterns — where we look, and for how long — reveals important information about how we read, how we learn, and even what kind of people we are.

-Psychology Today

How You Move Your Eyes Tattles on You!

Researchers are learning the importance of eye movement. Evan Risko, cognitive researcher and assistant professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario Canada, one of Canada’s leading universities, has concluded, “Who a person is relates to how they move their eyes.”

Learning what is relevant often takes years of experience. Studies have shown that the ability to focus on what is important with ones eyes where graphs, text, photos, diagrams, etc., are concerned, is one of the most important differences between experts and newbies.

While newbies can be taught what the experts took years to learn, the question I have is what about those people who found the right answer to the test questions posed, but were not experts? Was their ability to find the right answer without anyone directing their gaze at important parts of a diagram due to intelligence, since they had limited, if any, experience with similar challenges previously?

Eye-tracking equipment (video cameras that record even the tiniest movement of the eyes) has shown that people who are naturally curious and who like to learn and have new experiences, move their eyes much more, taking in more details of graphics and other information. These people tend to score higher on intelligence tests.

This is not related to eye color or iris pattern, but to eye movement when studying something new, whether it is a concept, directions on how to do something, or even a new social experience.

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