Children's Perceptions of and Beliefs About Facial Maturity

• Published in: The Journal of genetic psychology Vol. 165; no. 1; pp. 81 - 98
• Main Author: Thomas, Gross F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC Heldref 01.03.2004; Heldref Publications; Taylor & Francis Inc
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Adult; Age Differences; Aging; Aging (Individuals); Beliefs; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Childrens Attitudes; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive Ability; Correlation; Culture; Developmental psychology; Discrimination (Psychology); Elementary Education; Elementary Schools; Face; facial age perception; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human Body; Humans; Individual Characteristics; Information Processing; Information Sources; Interpersonal Competence; Male; Metacognition; Older Adults; Physical fitness; Primary Education; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Recognition (Psychology); Researchers; Self image; Skill Development; Social Cognition; Visual Perception; Young Adults; Young Children; Human; Preschool age; Social perception; Cognitive ability; Experimental study; Social development; School age; Adolescent; Young adult; Social aptitude; Face; Child; Age
• ISSN: 0022-1325; 1940-0896
• DOI: 10.3200/GNTP.165.1.81-98

The author studied children's and young adult's perceptions of facial age and beliefs about the sociability, cognitive ability, and physical fitness of adult faces. From pairs of photographs of adult faces, participants (4-6 years old, 8-10 years old, 13-16 years old, and 19-23 years old) selected the one face that appeared younger, older, better at remembering, smarter, more caring, friendlier, healthier, or stronger. Pairings consisted of faces at different adult age levels (young adults, middle-age adults, older adults, and very old adults.) Older participants were more sensitive to age differences in older faces and to faces more proximal in age. Children and adolescents believed that very old adult faces appeared to be less cognitively able than middle-aged faces (for children) and young adult faces (for adolescents). Very old male faces were judged to be less sociable. Old and very old faces were judged to be less physically fit than young and middle-aged faces. Significant positive correlation coefficients were found between the youngest children's abilities to discriminate between the adult faces of proximal age and youthful biases when selecting faces appearing to be more sociable and cognitively able. The results are discussed with respect to the development of facial information-processing skills and how those skills may be associated with the development of and changes in beliefs about older adults.