Talis pater, talis filius: perceived resemblance and the belief in genetic relatedness.

Full Abstract

People hardly ever realize that their belief in their high rate of success in detecting family resemblances is affected by their knowledge of the actual genetic link between individuals. In the three studies reported here, 100 men and 100 women were requested to estimate the facial resemblance of photographically portrayed child-adult pairs, while being given either truthful or deceitful information, or no information, about their relatedness. Believing that the members of a pair were parent and offspring was the main predictor of the perceived similarity between them. Men and women agreed in judging children as more similar to female than to male adults, except when the pair members were believed to be related; in this case, men judged the child as resembling the alleged parents equally. Common remarks on family resemblance thus appear to ensue less from a conscious desire to please or reassure the parents than from general hypothesis-testing biases in human reasoning, made perhaps more specific in men by a concern with the problem of uncertain paternity.

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Author information

Author/s: Bressan, Paola (P); Martello, Maria F Dal (MF);

Affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Università di Padova, Italy. paola.bressan(-atsign-)unipd.it

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS (Psychol Sci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-May; vol 13 (issue 3) : pp 213-8

Dates: Created 2002/05/14; Completed 2002/10/10; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12009040, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Analysis of Variance
Face - physiology
Family
Female

Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Perception - physiology
Sex Factors
Visual Perception - physiology

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