Abstract
Adults prefer to interact with others that are similar to themselves. Even slight facial self-resemblance can elicit trust towards strangers. Here we investigate if preschoolers at the age of 5 years already use facial self-resemblance when they make social judgments about others. We found that, in the absence of any additional knowledge about prospective peers, children preferred those who look subtly like themselves over complete strangers. Thus, subtle morphological similarities trigger social preferences well before adulthood.
Highlights
Humans show homophilic tendencies when making social decisions
We found no differences in the responses to the Self Morph between sexes, neither in the main condition (Welch Two Sample t-test: t = 0.311, df = 44.90, p = 0.757), nor in the control condition (Welch Two Sample t-test: t = 0.690, df = 44.83, p = 0.494), and pooled responses from boys and girls (n = 48 per condition)
Children opted for the Self Morphs in a median of 42% of trials, which does not deviate from what is expected by chance (Exact Wilcoxon signed rank test: T+ = 620, N = 48, p = 0.074)
Summary
Among adults, shared similarities such as attitudes, opinions, lifestyle or even similar names or shared birthdates influence the selection of potential partners for mating and social interaction [1,2,3,4,5]. Facial resemblance is an important cue that promotes prosociality, trust and perceived attractiveness among adults [6,7,8] (but see [9]). Previous studies indicate that being similar predicts social preference already early in life. From early on, humans are guided by clearly marked and highly prominent cues when selecting among potential interaction partners. It is unknown whether the sensitivity to subtle, unmarked similarity found in adults is already present in childhood
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