There are as many as 16 different genes responsible for the eye color we’re born with. Your genes determine how much melanin is present in the eye too, and the idea is that the more the melanin, the darker the eye. It’s easy to confuse the color of other people’s eyes due to the various photo-editing apps that are about nowadays, so you might be wondering what color Mariah Carey’s eyes are.
Carey has brown eyes. According to WorldAtlas, around 79% of the world’s population is comprised of people with brown eyes, making it the world’s most common eye color. It has even been rumored that at one stage, brown eyes were the only eye color that existed.
Let’s take a look at Carey’s parents to determine how she was born with those dazzling brown eyes.
Is Eye Color Inherited?
It’s often argued that eye color is inherited from your parents, and while this is true, there is more to it than that. For the most part, it’s safe to say that you’ll be able to predict a child’s eye color based on their parent’s eye color, but this idea stems from what’s called the dominant brown eye model.
But what’s that?
The dominant brown eye model has been around since the early 20th century, and although in the present day, we know that this model isn’t the most comprehensive, it’s still just as useful as any other.
The main theory behind the model is that children who inherit at least one out of two genes for brown eyes from either their mom or dad are guaranteed to have brown eyes, this is why it’s called the dominant brown eye model since the brown gene always dominates the other gene that’s passed on from the parent resulting in brown eyes, instead of any other color.
Theorists imply that the brown eye color has dominance over the blue eye color. If this were the case, then two blue-eyed parents would never be able to have a brown-eyed child. Luckily, this isn’t the case as it only takes one blue-eyed person with a dominant brown eye gene to form a brown-eyed baby, so it’s possible!
Mariah Carey’s Parents
Carey was born to Venezuelan African American father Roy Carey, and Irish-American mother Patricia Carey. Both of Carey’s parents have brown eyes, with Roy having a dark brown shade while Patricia has a lighter, hazel colored shade of brown.
Mariah Carey’s Children
Carey is the mother to twins, Moroccan and Monroe, 9, who she shares with ex-husband Nick Cannon. It seems the brown eyes have been passed down the line to these gorgeous twins!
The Traits Linked To Brown Eyes
Did you know that people form perceptions of someone else based on their eye color? Supposedly we associate certain traits with different eye colors.
I bet you didn’t know that the trait associated with brown eyes is intelligence. Closely following were trustworthiness and kindness, according to this survey. Apparently people who possess this godly eye color are likely to maintain stronger eye contact than blue-eyed people.
In the same survey, findings showed that people perceived people with blue eyes as sweet, sexy, or kind, with sweet being the top trait associated with the eye color. Green eyes are attributed to sexiness, deviousness, and creativity.
When asked if the respondents would like to change their eye color, 27% of those who said they’d change their eye color to green, with most of them saying that they wouldn’t swap their brown eyes for blue.