Do kids read faces? 兒童也識面相學？

By now, we understand that people do read faces, though not necessarily consciously, and form first impression about character traits.

But in previous cases1, 2, 3, by people, we mean adults.

Obviously, the next logical question would be “how about kids?” Do kids come up with the same consensus with adults? in other words, upon reading faces, would kids form the same first impression, i.e. character traits such as trustworthiness, competence, and dominance, as adults do?

This is what researchers want to know according to "Inferring Character From Faces: A Developmental Study” 4.

“If adult-child agreement in face-to-trait inferences emerges gradually across development, one might infer that these inferences require prolonged social experience to reach an adultlike state. If instead young children’s inferences are like those of adults, this would indicate that face-to- trait character inferences are a fundamental social cognitive capacity that emerges early in life. "

In other words, is face-reading an innate capability or does it required learning through experience?

The research concluded that:

“by age 7, children showed a level of consensus that matched adults’. In particular, participants of all ages robustly generated basic “mean”/“nice” judgments in response to a variety of facial characteristics."

“These ... experiments provide a clear demonstration that children as young as 3 to 4 years of age show an adultlike tendency both to attribute specific traits to faces and to evaluate faces as mean or nice on the basis of the faces’ appearance."

So, children as young as three do read faces and "attribute specific traits to faces and to evaluate faces as mean or nice on the basis of the faces’ appearance.”

不過，這種與生俱來的能力必竟有限。要真正懂得鑑人之術，也真要花功夫長時間去學習。

例如要想知道某人是否可信，要留意其眼神外，也要注意眼眉，鼻，口甚至上額，來綜合審視。

當然，最好也要“形名參同”5。

References: 1 A world of face masks 臉譜世界 2 Love at first sight and 面相 3 Modeling first impressions ... II 4 Inferring Character From Faces: A Developmental Study 5 《韓非子‧主道》： “有言者自為名， 有事者自為形， 形名參同， 君乃無事焉， 歸之其情。”

Originally posted at http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_532b25230102xz4a.html

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