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Facial Resemblance and Kinship Detection by Strangers

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Synonyms

Phenotypic similarity; Physical self-similarity; Visual similarity

Definitions

Facial resemblance

  • Amount of physical similarity between individuals’ facial features.

Kinship detection

  • Assessment of the degree of relatedness or genetic similarity among individuals.

Introduction

Human sociality is characterized by cooperation within large social groups. These groups often contain a large fraction of people not personally known to a given individual. It has been proposed that, in the absence of any knowledge about a prospective social partner, the detection of morphological similarity potentially underlies social assortment among strangers. The objective of the following is to provide a brief overview on recent findings on the role of facial resemblance in guiding human social preferences.

Humans Prefer Similar Others

Humans have evolved to form and live within large and complex social systems. They are exceptional in the extent to which they engage in cooperative exchange, even...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Nadja Richter

Authors
  1. Nadja Richter
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nadja Richter .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  2. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Minna Lyons

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

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Richter, N. (2016). Facial Resemblance and Kinship Detection by Strangers. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3751-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3751-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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