One of the common beliefs about babies is that the newborn tends to be more like his father than his mother. The evolutionary explanation behind this tendency is easy to understand
One of the common beliefs about babies is that the newborn tends to be more like his father than his mother. It is easy to understand the evolutionary explanation behind this tendency, after all the mother is sure that the child is hers, while the father is not. From this, it seems logical that there would be an evolutionary preference for babies who resembled the father, so the father stayed around and helped raise them and their survival rates were higher.
In honor of "Father's Day" starting this week Scientific American published a collection of studies related to fatherhood. One of the studies presented deals with the resemblance of babies to their parents.
In 1995, Nicholas Christenfeld and Emily Hill published the first study on the subject in the prestigious journal Nature. In this study, the researchers asked the experiment participants to match one-year-old babies with pictures of their mothers and fathers. It seemed easier to match the baby to its father, just as the evolutionary hypothesis predicted.
Publishing a study in a magazine, especially a prestigious one like Nature invites the world of science to repeat the experiment to verify its correctness. This is part of the scientific method of peer review.
A significant part of the follow-up studies were published in the magazine Evolution & Human Behavior and they were full of evidence that contradicted the original study. For example, the study by Robert French (French) and Serge Bredart (Brédart) from 1999 examined the resemblance of one-, three-year-old and five-year-old toddlers to their parents and found no preference in resemblance to fathers or mothers. Other studies have shown a preference in similarity to mothers.
Until now, I thought that the same research whose results were fixed in the public mind dealt with newborn babies and not one-year-olds. On the face of it, it does not make sense that only at the age of one year the child will resemble the father, the similarity should be manifested at a much earlier stage to ensure the father's stay. Some of the follow-up studies thought in a similar way and turned to check the similarity of babies to their parents in their first days. The study published in 2000 found that three-day-old newborns are more similar to their mothers. But when the mothers were asked about the resemblance they indicated a resemblance to the father, and emphasized this resemblance more strongly if the father was present.
In 2006, a study was published that followed newborns up to the age of 6. The study found that newborns are indeed more similar to their mothers in the first days. The girls will remain more like their mothers while the boys will become more like their fathers around the age of 2-3. By the way, the same group published a study in 2010 that showed that in cases where the baby does resemble the father more, the father is more emotionally invested in the baby.
In the bottom line, this is a good example of a situation where research published in a magazine is considered, is hidden again and again later, but only the members of the scientific community who work in the field and follow the publications will know about it. In this way a misconception may be established as the prevailing opinion.
What is the conclusion of all the studies? Children have a tendency to resemble their parents. Such areas are difficult to research due to social and cultural influences. One way that might make it possible to answer the question more decisively would be an analysis of the biometric characteristics of the parents and the offspring. In the meantime, you can continue to tell the new father that the red and wrinkled boy really looks like him, the mother just wants to sleep anyway.
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First time I hear about such a belief. At the age of six months to a year, they always look more like their mother to me.
Chen, your words are not accurate.
For example, lions know how to distinguish between their cubs and other lion cubs born from the same lionesses.
It seems to me that women also prefer the baby that looks more like them.. somewhere.
To me they look more like a mother. It's so stupid to see a blond Scandinavian boy with a Yemeni father and everyone tells him "Wow, he's a fool" come on. Fed up.
And before the "patriarchal era", men at all did not know their connection to the "making" of the offspring. See this as a purely feminine miracle.
Of course, research on women's preferences is only at the beginning, but there is no connection between who the woman considers a good partner for raising offspring, and who she considers visually beautiful, and who she considers a partner for sex...and so on. And the one who is not at all interested in living with a man... things probably work differently for her.
Yehuda:
Without specifically going into the matter of the creation of the property - it seems to me that it is difficult for you to agree with me only because you only read part of what I said and ignored the other part.
I repeat the part of my speech with which, according to you, you find it difficult to agree:
"This relationship is nourished - both from the frequent meeting with you (which leads to a more intimate acquaintance) and for more complex reasons that are not direct emotion."
See there are two parts here?
Do you understand why "the creation of property" (even if it were true - and in my opinion it is not true - I do not feel at all that my children are my property) falls easily into the second part (more complex reasons that are not a direct emotion)?
Whereas I even heard that they are similar to the mother's first boyfriend
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegony_%28pregnancy%29
Aalek 🙂
Yehuda, when they say our ancestors, they usually mean spiritual ancestors. 🙂
So it seems to me that our ancestors were open to suggestions and celebrated, in any way they saw fit and everything is a matter of geography and everything that happens to the human race today is just a return to the origins
good week
Sabdarmish Yehuda
To complete the picture, the definition loyal is only suitable for gibbons. The chimpanzees - everyone is with everyone, the orangutans live alone and meet only for the purpose and baboons in general have tails - that is, they are not apes. In short, each type of apes has different patterns of sexual behavior.
I remember seeing a program about baboons where there is a dominant male, and I blamed this on all the monkeys, including the loyal ones, and for that I guarantee that my relatives and partners will forgive 98% of the DNA that I messed with them.
I apologize
(:))
Thanks to Aryeh Seter for the correction.
Have a good and faithful week
Sabdarmish Yehuda
Yehuda - what you wrote about the apes that there is a male ruler and the rest try to steal Hafuzim - is true only for the gorillas, but is not true for the chimpanzees (the Mtsoi and the bonobo), the orangutans and the gibbons (including the siamang). See also my article "Why do chimpanzees have large testicles" which also talks about how confident the male is about his offspring.
A man could not possibly see his own face, but he could see other body parts or the color of the skin and decide whether or not it resembled his baby's body. He could also receive impressions from others about the nature of the image.
It's hard for me to agree with McKal that he loves his children because statistically he will meet them more, I think the canine creature plays more here. that's my Boy. point. And I will protect him as I protect everything that is mine! .
It is possible that with our ancestors the situation was different and only the ruling male would be engaged in the craft of prodding and multiplying when all the other males tried to steal a few hasty ones just like you see in the great apes.
Shabbat Shalom
Sabdarmish Yehuda
I have a personal diagnosis that is still far from statistical validation and I would like to hear references that reflect the experience of others.
I think the first time I thought about it was when one of my friends told me that the feelings that arise in her at the sight of foreign babies do not even come close to the feelings that arise in her at the sight of her own baby.
I know that I personally - just love all the babies I meet.
Obviously, I have developed a special bond with my children, but this bond is nourished - both from the frequent meeting with you (which leads to a more intimate acquaintance) and for more complex reasons that are not direct emotion.
My speculation (which I have since verified in several cases but which I have never seriously tested) was that because during evolution - only the females could know for sure who their offspring were - it made sense that they would develop a special emotion towards them and this emotion could be adjusted so as not to waste resources on the offspring of others.
Males, on the other hand, could not know for sure who their offspring were and therefore developed a more symmetrical attitude towards babies - whether they were theirs or not.
Not all creatures have undergone a similar evolution in this regard and the differences are related to differences in sexual behavior.
The big cats, for example, where the males guard the females and prevent them from mating with competitors, can also develop a special attitude towards their offspring (in this case - the special attitude is expressed by not killing them).
Hi Michael. Definitely an interesting thought!
All this belief was born out of the need to compensate for the father's doubts and fears that the baby might not be his.
It is not necessary to exaggerate the process and say that the frustrated (and therefore not so rational) fathers demanded evidence that the probability distribution of the baby resembling his father would be sufficiently concentrated around the specific father so that he would feel comfortable and not raise skeptical concerns.
It's kind of like saying that we are in the image of God (ie it's not enough that there is only God). As long as it dispels fears and doubts faith takes hold.
Years ago - when I heard about the study - I came to the conclusion that the perpetrators had not thought it through.
At first glance - it is easy to understand why - when the father recognizes the baby's resemblance to him (and of course it is only a visual resemblance because other features are not yet manifested in babies) - his tendency to stay and help the mother in raising him will increase (because as mentioned - unlike the mother who gave birth to the baby and therefore she knows that it is hers - the father can only guess, and recognizing the similarity is a good indication).
But what happens at second glance?
For me, at least, the second look included the following diagnosis:
During most of the years of evolution - the father did not even know what he himself looked like!
Knowing one's appearance became possible only after the development of the appearance and occasional reflections in the water (probably, most of the time, they are not smooth) are not enough to learn how you look.
Hence - the only way in which a person could learn about his offspring's likeness to him was through the words of others (and speech did not exist for a long time and it is likely that a long period of time passed before it also began to be used to report the baby's likeness to his father).
Therefore - from a second glance - the consideration of the first glance does not really hold water.
From tests done in different parts of the world it was discovered that a significant percentage of the babies are not the father who raises them. Sometimes it is more than ten percent. In this case it is clear that the woman wants to convince her partner that the newborn baby is his.
In addition, it seems to me that two things are mixed. In the first case, the breeding father, who is desirable to have qualities of diligent loyalty and the ability to earn, etc. that are suitable for the breeding father, and on the other hand, the father whose genes the mother desired. Depending on the evolutionary time in question such as hunting and muscular traits in the Stone Age, or, in later periods, wisdom traits. And it is not at all necessary for one partner to have all of the above qualities. In this way, the woman may receive additional support in breeding from the hunter as well, and it can't hurt at all.
Shabbat Shalom
Sabdarmish Yehuda