Parent-Child Physical Resemblance as Cues of Man ’s Paternity

The objective of the experiment was to conduct an initial investigation of that assumption. In the experiment, parti cipants were presented with descriptions in which information was manipulated concerning the similarity of child to mother vs. to father vs. to neither of them. A total of 312 students of both sexes took participation in the experiment, having agreed to take part in a short psychological study immed iately after classes were over. They were asked to read some short stories and to give their opinion as to whether the man described is the biological father of the child. It turned out that in conditions where the child’s appearance was dissimilar to both of the parents, the participants doubted the biological parenthood of the father. In conditions where the child was similar to the mother, the certainty of participants that the man was the biological father was as high as in conditions where the story indicated that the child was similar to him. The results thus suggest that information a bout a child’s similarity to its mother may, in some situations, be significant in the formulation of judgements on the biological fatherhood of a man. Published on 2019-01-24 08:27:00

Source: Psychologica Belgica - January 24, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research