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Much research into kinship discrimination uses facial morphology as a cue to kinship, although it has been proposed that there is a potential for the human voice to carry information that might be used to judge relatedness between individuals. In this preliminary investigation into the potential for the voice to carry kinship information we use the methods of Maloney & Dal Martello (2006), replacing facial stimuli with vocal samples from full sibling and long term friendship pairs to assess if listeners can discriminate between pair types above chance. Additionally, we add exploratory analysis to examine the potential similarities and differences between sibling and friendship pairs.

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-qjp-10.1177_17470218211069484 for Using relative-speed-of-processing to explain the shielding function of task rules by Liang Huang, Bingxin Li, Panjie Yan, Chen Xu, Xueyin Tian, Chengyang Han and Xiangqian Li in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Previous research has shown strong cross-cultural agreement in facial attractiveness judgments. However, these studies all used a theory-driven approach in which responses to specific facial characteristics are compared between cultures. This approach is constrained by the predictions that can be derived from existing theories and can therefore bias impressions of the extent of cross-cultural agreement in face preferences. We directly addressed this problem by using a data-driven, rather than theory-driven, approach to compare facial attractiveness judgments made by Chinese-born participants who were resident in China, Chinese-born participants currently resident in the UK, and UK-born and UK-resident White participants. Analyses of the principal components along which faces naturally varied suggested that Chinese and White UK participants used face information in different ways, at least when judging women’s facial attractiveness. In other words, the data-driven approach used in this study revealed some cross-cultural differences in face preferences that were not apparent in studies using theory-driven approaches.

It is well established that men report greater jealousy when imagining scenarios in which their romantic partner interacts with men displaying masculine physical characteristics. However, few studies have tested for corresponding effects of sexually dimorphic characteristics on women’s jealousy or tested for these effects in non-Western samples. Thus, we investigated the effects of experimentally manipulated sexually dimorphic face-shape cues on Chinese and White UK women’s jealousy perceptions. Chinese and White UK women both reported greater jealousy when imagining scenarios in which their romantic partner interacted with more feminine women. Both groups of women showed large effects of facial femininity on jealousy perceptions for both Chinese and White UK stimuli. Together, these results suggest that sexually dimorphic facial characteristics influence women’s jealousy and that this effect is not unique to women raised in Western cultures.

Social judgments of faces made by Western participants are thought to be underpinned by two dimensions: valence and dominance. Because some research suggests that Western and Eastern participants process faces differently, the two-dimensional model of face evaluation may not necessarily apply to judgments of faces by Eastern participants. Here we used a data-driven approach to investigate the components underlying social judgments of Chinese faces by Chinese participants. Analyses showed that social judgments of Chinese faces by Chinese participants are partly underpinned by a general approachability dimension similar to the valence dimension previously found to underpin Western participants’ evaluations of White faces. However, we found that a general capability dimension, rather than a dominance dimension, contributed to Chinese participants’ evaluations of Chinese faces. Thus, our findings present evidence for both cultural similarities and cultural differences in social evaluations of faces. Importantly, the dimension that explained most of the variance in Chinese participants’ social judgments of faces was strikingly similar to the valence dimension previously reported for Western participants.

Effects of facial coloration on attractiveness judgments are hypothesized to be “universal” (i.e., similar across cultures). However, only two studies have directly compared facial color preferences in two cultures. Both of those studies reported that White UK and Black African participants showed similar preferences for facial coloration. By contrast with the cross-cultural similarity reported in those studies, here we show cultural differences in the effects of facial coloration on Chinese and White UK participants' (N=196) facial attractiveness judgments. While both Chinese and White UK participants preferred faces with increased lightness and redness, Chinese participants had stronger preferences for lightness and White UK participants had stronger preferences for redness. More strikingly, while Chinese participants preferred faces with decreased yellowness, White UK participants preferred faces with increased yellowness, and this effect was not qualified by face ethnicity. These results suggest that preferences for facial coloration are not necessarily universal, but can differ across cultures.

Objectives: Although many theories of human facial attractiveness propose positive correlations between facial attractiveness and measures of actual health, evidence for such correlations is somewhat mixed. Here we sought to replicate a recent study reporting that women's facial attractiveness is independently related to both their adiposity and cortisol. Methods: Ninety-six women provided saliva samples, which were analyzed for cortisol level, and their height and weight, which were used to calculate their body mass index (BMI). A digital face image of each woman was also taken under standardized photographic conditions and rated for attractiveness. Results: There was a significant negative correlation between women's facial attractiveness and BMI. By contrast, salivary cortisol and facial attractiveness were not significantly correlated. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the types of health information reflected in women's faces include qualities that are indexed by BMI but do not necessarily include qualities that are indexed by cortisol.