1-Year-Olds Found to Look Like Their Fathers, Not Mothers
Although parents are frequently told that their children look just like them, that observation may be more fiction than fact--with one major exception, say researchers from UC San Diego. One-year-old babies, they found, do tend to look like their fathers. Psychologists Nicholas Christenfeld and Emily Hill asked 122 volunteers to look at pictures of children at various ages and a group of adults that included the parents. Both boys and girls at age 1 could be matched to their fathers, but no resemblances to mothers were found, the pair report in Nature.
The researchers speculate that the likeness developed evolutionarily so that fathers would be more likely to protect and nurture their children.
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