There are plenty of resources where you can find clues and signs that someone is a narcissist. For example, signs of narcissism include an inflated sense of self, risk-taking, and a lack of empathy.
The problem is that many of these little hints don’t show up until after you’ve already settled into a relationship with a narcissist.
You see, narcissists are initially charming. Their personalities are alluring and draw you in so that you are in over your head before you even realize anything is wrong.
Related: What Happens To Narcissists When Other People Realize They’re Narcissists
But thanks to science, we now know how to tell if someone is a narcissist just by looking at their face. According to a 2018 study, there’s one facial trait that tells us everything we need to know about a person’s true intentions, including whether or not you’re dealing with a narcissist.
It turns out that it’s all in the eyebrows.
If you’ve ever seen a Tumblr dedicated to photos of celebrities without eyebrows, you know how important those two little strips of hair are to your face. It’s not just for looks either. In 2018, researchers released findings revealing that the reason we have eyebrows in the first place is for communication.
Related: The 7 Startling Stages Of Falling In Love With A Narcissist
“We propose that converting the large brow ridges of our immediate ancestors to a more vertical frontal bone in modern humans allowed highly mobile eyebrows to display subtle subordinate emotions,” the researchers wrote. Our eyebrows help us show our emotions, often revealing how we feel without us having to say a word.
This study conducted by Miranda Giacomin and Nicholas O. Roll in 2018 indicated that eyebrows also reveal the possibility of narcissistic personality disorder.
In the first part of the study, the researchers manipulated facial features, leading them to the conclusion that “accurate judgments of grandiose narcissism depend particularly on a person’s eyebrows.” The researchers then tried to find out exactly why eyebrows reveal someone’s narcissistic personality and found that those with thick, bushy eyebrows were more likely to be viewed as narcissists.
Related: The 5 Manipulation Tactics Narcissists Use To Get Inside Your Head
To test their theory, the researchers swapped narcissistic and non-narcissistic eyebrows between faces and found that a non-narcissistic person wearing narcissistic eyebrows was perceived as having a narcissistic personality.
Giacomin suggests that “narcissists may maintain distinctive, thick, bushy eyebrows to enhance recognition,” which is what we all know narcissists strive for.
According to the study, being able to recognize a narcissistic person just by looking at their face is very beneficial in the long run. You’re less likely to waste time dating someone only to end up in a toxic relationship because they’re a narcissist if you can guess they have toxic personality disorder just by looking at them.
So next time, the first thing you notice about that cute guy in the room is his perfectly groomed, bushy eyebrows, be on high alert!
