(207 kB) LM DeBruine (2004). Facial resemblance increases the attractiveness of same-sex faces more than other-sex faces. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 271(1552): 2085-2090. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2004.2824

Our reactions to facial self-resemblance could reflect either specialized responses to cues of kinship or by-products of the general perceptual mechanisms of face encoding and mere exposure. The adaptive hypothesis predicts differences in reactions to self-resemblance in mating and prosocial contexts, while the by-product hypothesis does not. Using face images that were digitally transformed to resemble participants, I showed that the effects of resemblance on attractiveness judgements depended on both the sex of the judge and the sex of the face being judged: facial resemblance increased attractiveness judgements of same-sex faces more than other-sex faces, despite the use of identical procedures to manipulate resemblance. A control experiment indicated these effects were caused neither by lower resemblance of other-sex faces than same-sex faces, nor by an increased perception of averageness or familiarity of same-sex faces due to prototyping or mere exposure affecting only same-sex faces. The differential impact of self-resemblance on our perception of same-sex and other-sex faces supports the hypothesis that humans use facial resemblance as a cue of kinship.

Figure 1
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Figure 1. Same-sex transforms (c, h) were made by applying 50% of the shape difference between the participant's face (a, f) and the same-sex composite face (b, g) to the same-sex composite face (b, g). Other-sex transforms (e, j) were made by applying 50% of the shape difference between the participant's face (a, f) and the same-sex composite face (b, g) to the other-sex composite face (d, i). transforms retained 100% of the colour information from the composite face.
Figure 2
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Figure 2. Mean attractiveness (a) and averageness (b) score differences (± s.e.) were calculated from the number of times a participant chose his or her own transformed image (own-preference) minus the average number of times other participants chose that image (other-preference). Self-resemblance increased the attractiveness of same-sex faces more than other-sex faces. In contrast, self-resemblance increased the perceived averageness of same-sex faces no more than other-sex faces.

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