After spending more time with any one race, do you still think they look alike?

Question

I think I figured out why this is, I'm Japanese and when I first saw Lord of the Rings I kept telling myself "wait didn't that white guy with the beard just die in the last scene"...but then when I came to the States and spent more time around whites, I realized that they look really different. The point is I think that the more time you spend submerged in a certain culture, the more you will notice the differences of the individual. Has anyone not found this true? Although there maybe certain groups of people that look alike due to intribe marriages. Also I think the reason why whites may seem very different is because Europe has so many small countries and the people in the mixed around areas but the original people of that area would look similar. And in America..well its comprised of all different sorts of Europeans. If you traveled to the north and south of China or Japan, it would be the same it's just because the area is so vast people tend to stay around the same places.

Answer 1

Yes, they look alike

V

Answer 2

Well, honestly I make the same mistakes with white actors all the time and I'm white and grew up in a predominately white neighbourhood. Although, from my understanding, the idea that 'all (whatevers) look the same' comes from where and how one grew up and who was around when they were learning to recognize faces as infants. If I were around many 'asian faces', I may recognize more differences than I would being raised around 'white faces'.

As for your argument about intribe marriages and such, perhaps there is slightly more variation in America than Europe, I don't know how well that would follow, but there is much more variation in blacks than there is among whites.

Answer 3

Whether all of a racial subclassification(commonly five-black, brown, red, yellow, or white-there is only one race-the human race with plenty of admixture) look alike depends on how your senses are trained. If you look at a person in general-head, torso, 4 limbs, then skin color-yes, they will all look alike, but if your senses are trained for finer observation, especially spatial arrangement, expressions and so on, then they don't look alike. In a college Psychology class I once had, one of the female students sat next to the door with her purse hung over her chair. The Instructor unbeknownst to the female student, had made prior arrangements with a male student from one of his other classes, to mock steal her purse, lingering only long enough for her to react and the class see him before he left. The instructor then explaned the experiment to the girl and the class. Next, he had everyone write a description of the mock thief. No two descriptions were identical. Even skin color varied a great deal. The Instructor had the Art Instructor drop by and make 2 or 3 sketches from the more detailed descriptions. We had one Police Officer who was trained in just such a situation, taking the class. His description and drawing was the closest to the mock thief, but was still not exact.The Instructor had the actual mock perpitrator come in for the class to view him more closely. Everyone was surprised how different he looked from what they had remembered.This applies to twins by the way. In my case, certain friends of mine have a body movement so distinctive, I can recognize them even in costumes at Halloween parties.Although the US is called the melting pot, right now it is more like a mixed salad. In 2,000-4,000 years,  the world will truly be a melting pot where skin color will tend to a golden brown, with dark eyes(already is) predominating-if the world as we know it, survives. Bottom line the more attention to detail you pay, the more you will be able to identify differnt members of a racial subclassification.Visit naturescorner.com, my website.

Answer 4

The similarities come from the 'founder effect.'  Those who are in a population mate with the people who are in close proximity, and so people share certain charachteristics depending on how closely-knit the community is and how frequently members join and leave the group.  

As for thinking, say, Europeans all look the same, yes, spending time with them helps in differentiating people becuase you see them for their features, expressions, and other identifying factors, not just their skin and hair color.  For example, some people think that "All Asians look the same."  Asians most definately do NOT look all the same- their appearance depends on the country and region they come from, and even then, it varies from person to person, as with all places.  The same applies to Europe, Africa, and anywhere else in the world.