Your Choice of Shoes May Reveal How Clingy You Are

Your shoes may reveal more about you than you realize--or, at least, that's what research published in the Journal of Research in Personality suggests. According to the study, the design and state of your shoes may tell a person your age, gender, and income level--as well as how clingy you are in your relationships. 

Researchers asked 63 students from the University of Kansas to look at photos of the shoes most worn by 208 volunteers. Said volunteers were asked to answer a variety of online personality quizzes. The participants of the study were then made to guess the shoe owners’ age, income, gender, political leanings, personality, and attachment style, among other things.

Researchers found that people were able to accurately tell a person’s age, income, and gender just by looking at his or her shoes. More importantly, they were also able to determine the shoe owners’ attachment style; that is, whether they were clingy or laidback when it came to personal relationships. Apparently, shoes that looked new or were well-maintained belonged to people who got more anxious about close relationships. The authors believe these people pay more attention to appearance and care about what other people think.

Still, not all secrets can be gleaned from just a person’s shoes. Despite some success, the participants failed to deduce whether the shoe owner was politically liberal or conservative and were also unable to predict traits like extroversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.

How about you, FNites? What type of shoes do you love wearing, and what do you think they say about you? Share your thoughts in a comment.

(Photo by John Nyberg via sxc.hu)