Perceptions of child facial cues as a function of child age

Original article:

Perceptions of child facial cues as a function of child age

Evolutionary Psychology 5(4): 801-814 Anthony A Volk, Child and Youth Studies, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1, tvolk@brocku.caJaneen L. Lukjanczuk, Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario,Canada K7L 3N6Vernon L. Quinsey, Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6

Abstract

Child facial cues are known to influence adults’ perceptions, attributions, and parental care behaviors. But how does the influence of these cues change with age? There are three competing theories regarding the influence of age on child facial cues: younger cues have the strongest influence, older cues have the strongest influence, and age cues do not influence adults. There are empirical findings that provide support for each of these hypotheses. Because previous studies have not focused on measures of adults’ desire to provide parental care and have used limited stimulus sets and/or statistics, we conducted two studies to determine how age-related changes in child faces influenced adults’ perceptions and ratings in the Hypothetical Adoption Paradigm. We presented approximately 200 adults with images of 12 different children at eight different ages (from six months to six years). Adults’ ratings of adoption preference and cuteness were strongly and negatively related to the age of the child facial stimuli, while there was no consistent relationship between child age and adults’ ratings of health. Our results support the hypothesis that facial cues associated with younger ages are most effective at eliciting adult responses associated with parental care.

Keywords

age, child faces, infant facial cues, adoption preference, cuteness, health

Full article

Download PDF (free)