Human Kin Recognition Is Self- Rather Than Family-Referential

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Also Included In: Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 04 Mar 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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We feel more altruistic toward people who resemble us; this tendency probably evolved because it stimulated our ancestors to help their kin.

There were no mirrors then, so people could learn what kin looked like only by inspecting the faces of household members; these, however, may or may not be family. Hence, evolution might have favored a rewritable kin-image, where information about household members is replaced by any newly available information about the self.

Supporting this hypothesis, we found that even identical twins preferred helping strangers whose faces had been covertly manipulated to resemble their own rather than their co-twin's.

Royal Society Journal Biology Letters

Proceedings B is the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of the journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org

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