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Effect of Partnership Status on Preferences for Facial Self-Resemblance
Self-resemblance has been found to have a context-dependent effect when expressing preferences for faces. Whereas dissimilarity preference during mate choice in animals is often explained as an evolutionary adaptation to increase heterozygosity of offspring, self-resemblance can be also favored in h...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4906020/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27378970 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00869 |
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author | Lindová, Jitka Little, Anthony C. Havlíček, Jan Roberts, S. Craig Rubešová, Anna Flegr, Jaroslav |
author_facet | Lindová, Jitka Little, Anthony C. Havlíček, Jan Roberts, S. Craig Rubešová, Anna Flegr, Jaroslav |
author_sort | Lindová, Jitka |
collection | PubMed |
description | Self-resemblance has been found to have a context-dependent effect when expressing preferences for faces. Whereas dissimilarity preference during mate choice in animals is often explained as an evolutionary adaptation to increase heterozygosity of offspring, self-resemblance can be also favored in humans, reflecting, e.g., preference for kinship cues. We performed two studies, using transformations of facial photographs to manipulate levels of resemblance with the rater, to examine the influence of self-resemblance in single vs. coupled individuals. Raters assessed facial attractiveness of other-sex and same-sex photographs according to both short-term and long-term relationship contexts. We found a preference for dissimilarity of other-sex and same-sex faces in single individuals, but no effect of self-resemblance in coupled raters. No effect of sex of participant or short-term vs. long-term attractiveness rating was observed. The results support the evolutionary interpretation that dissimilarity of other-sex faces is preferred by uncoupled individuals as an adaptive mechanism to avoid inbreeding. In contrast, lower dissimilarity preference of other-sex faces in coupled individuals may reflect suppressed attention to attractiveness cues in potential alternative partners as a relationship maintenance mechanism, and its substitution by attention to cues of kinship and psychological similarity connected with greater likelihood of prosocial behavior acquisition from such persons. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4906020 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-49060202016-07-04 Effect of Partnership Status on Preferences for Facial Self-Resemblance Lindová, Jitka Little, Anthony C. Havlíček, Jan Roberts, S. Craig Rubešová, Anna Flegr, Jaroslav Front Psychol Psychology Self-resemblance has been found to have a context-dependent effect when expressing preferences for faces. Whereas dissimilarity preference during mate choice in animals is often explained as an evolutionary adaptation to increase heterozygosity of offspring, self-resemblance can be also favored in humans, reflecting, e.g., preference for kinship cues. We performed two studies, using transformations of facial photographs to manipulate levels of resemblance with the rater, to examine the influence of self-resemblance in single vs. coupled individuals. Raters assessed facial attractiveness of other-sex and same-sex photographs according to both short-term and long-term relationship contexts. We found a preference for dissimilarity of other-sex and same-sex faces in single individuals, but no effect of self-resemblance in coupled raters. No effect of sex of participant or short-term vs. long-term attractiveness rating was observed. The results support the evolutionary interpretation that dissimilarity of other-sex faces is preferred by uncoupled individuals as an adaptive mechanism to avoid inbreeding. In contrast, lower dissimilarity preference of other-sex faces in coupled individuals may reflect suppressed attention to attractiveness cues in potential alternative partners as a relationship maintenance mechanism, and its substitution by attention to cues of kinship and psychological similarity connected with greater likelihood of prosocial behavior acquisition from such persons. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-06-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4906020/ /pubmed/27378970 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00869 Text en Copyright © 2016 Lindová, Little, Havlíček, Roberts, Rubešová and Flegr. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Lindová, Jitka Little, Anthony C. Havlíček, Jan Roberts, S. Craig Rubešová, Anna Flegr, Jaroslav Effect of Partnership Status on Preferences for Facial Self-Resemblance |
title | Effect of Partnership Status on Preferences for Facial Self-Resemblance |
title_full | Effect of Partnership Status on Preferences for Facial Self-Resemblance |
title_fullStr | Effect of Partnership Status on Preferences for Facial Self-Resemblance |
title_full_unstemmed | Effect of Partnership Status on Preferences for Facial Self-Resemblance |
title_short | Effect of Partnership Status on Preferences for Facial Self-Resemblance |
title_sort | effect of partnership status on preferences for facial self-resemblance |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4906020/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27378970 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00869 |
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