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Parsing the Mechanisms Underlying Ingroup Facial Resemblance

People prefer to form relationships with people like themselves—a tendency that extends even to facial appearance, resulting in groups whose members look alike. Here, we investigated the mechanisms underlying homophilic resemblance using facial photos of fraternity/sorority members from two time poi...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bjornsdottir, R. Thora, Hehman, Eric, Agboh, Darren, Rule, Nicholas O.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9066680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34247521
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01461672211025206
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author Bjornsdottir, R. Thora
Hehman, Eric
Agboh, Darren
Rule, Nicholas O.
author_facet Bjornsdottir, R. Thora
Hehman, Eric
Agboh, Darren
Rule, Nicholas O.
author_sort Bjornsdottir, R. Thora
collection PubMed
description People prefer to form relationships with people like themselves—a tendency that extends even to facial appearance, resulting in groups whose members look alike. Here, we investigated the mechanisms underlying homophilic resemblance using facial photos of fraternity/sorority members from two time points: before joining the group and after belonging to the group for three years. Analyses of both subjective trait impressions and objective face-shape measurements revealed that not only did group members look alike, they resembled one another even before joining the group. Moreover, photos of potential fraternity recruits revealed that facial appearance predicted both the group that individuals sought to join and the group’s likelihood of accepting them. Individuals, therefore, seek to join groups consisting of people who look like them, and the groups preferentially accept new members who resemble those already in the group. This bidirectional preference for homophily likely perpetuates intragroup homogeneity, suggesting potential implications beyond appearance.
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spelling pubmed-90666802022-05-04 Parsing the Mechanisms Underlying Ingroup Facial Resemblance Bjornsdottir, R. Thora Hehman, Eric Agboh, Darren Rule, Nicholas O. Pers Soc Psychol Bull Articles People prefer to form relationships with people like themselves—a tendency that extends even to facial appearance, resulting in groups whose members look alike. Here, we investigated the mechanisms underlying homophilic resemblance using facial photos of fraternity/sorority members from two time points: before joining the group and after belonging to the group for three years. Analyses of both subjective trait impressions and objective face-shape measurements revealed that not only did group members look alike, they resembled one another even before joining the group. Moreover, photos of potential fraternity recruits revealed that facial appearance predicted both the group that individuals sought to join and the group’s likelihood of accepting them. Individuals, therefore, seek to join groups consisting of people who look like them, and the groups preferentially accept new members who resemble those already in the group. This bidirectional preference for homophily likely perpetuates intragroup homogeneity, suggesting potential implications beyond appearance. SAGE Publications 2021-07-10 2022-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9066680/ /pubmed/34247521 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01461672211025206 Text en © 2021 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Articles
Bjornsdottir, R. Thora
Hehman, Eric
Agboh, Darren
Rule, Nicholas O.
Parsing the Mechanisms Underlying Ingroup Facial Resemblance
title Parsing the Mechanisms Underlying Ingroup Facial Resemblance
title_full Parsing the Mechanisms Underlying Ingroup Facial Resemblance
title_fullStr Parsing the Mechanisms Underlying Ingroup Facial Resemblance
title_full_unstemmed Parsing the Mechanisms Underlying Ingroup Facial Resemblance
title_short Parsing the Mechanisms Underlying Ingroup Facial Resemblance
title_sort parsing the mechanisms underlying ingroup facial resemblance
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9066680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34247521
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01461672211025206
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