Babies are drawn to attractive people We're not kidding! A decades-old experiment found that newborns and young infants spent more time staring at faces that adults deemed attractive. The study consisted of images (chosen by adults) of faces that are considered beautiful and others that are considered less attractive.
Human infants, just a few days of age, are known to prefer attractive human faces. We examined whether this preference is human-specific. Three- to 4-month-olds preferred attractive over unattractive domestic and wild cat (tiger) faces (Experiments 1 and 3).
They Are Drawn to Something Attractive
Naturally, babies tend to draw their attention to something attractive. It can be moving objects, high-contrast images, or even interesting features of an attractive person. Yes! Babies stare longer at attractive people.
learned. Alan Slater and his colleagues at the University of Exeter showed paired images of faces to babies as young a one day old and found that they spent more time fixated on the more attractive face. “Attractiveness is not in the eye of the beholder, it's innate to a newborn infant,” says Slater.
It has nothing to do with society's standards of beauty. Instead, it showed that even infants are drawn to people they found interesting to look at. So if you catch a baby staring at you, it just may be because s/he thinks there's something special about the way you look.
Children as young as 2 and 3 start to be aware of physical differences, like skin color, and are curious. This curiosity builds their understanding of the world and the people around them. Staring is a sign of this curiosity, not rudeness.
Most likely there is something about you that interests them. It's not usually a bad thing about yourself, it's just something that's caught their attention. For example, many little kids stare at me because of my dimples.
tion the infants looked longer at the attractive faces. These findings are clear evidence that newborn infants use information about internal facial features in making prefer- ences based on attractiveness.
When children like some people more than others, it's not really because those people are more trustworthy; it's because like everyone else, children gravitate towards people who are happy and confident. People who believe they are attractive are usually more happy and confident.
Babies as young as six months can distinguish between good and bad people, according to a study in which babies observed characters being helpful or unhelpful. Scientists had thought that social judgments developed with language at about 18 months to two years old.
Studies suggest that babies do not always prefer female faces, but, in fact, show a strong preference for human faces of the same gender as the primary caregiver. Since most babies are primarily cared for by females, most babies prefer to look at female faces.
They're curious about the world, and everything is new to them. They want to interact with people and be social. Your baby may be staring as an early form of communication between them and the huge world around them.
Igor explained: "We see from the results that children and especially girls have more trust in attractive faces, even though there are no obvious reasons why people with more attractive faces would be more knowledgeable about object labels.
A subsequent body of research, building over the years in the journal Evolution & Human Behavior, has delivered results in conflict with the 1995 paper, indicating that young children resemble both parents equally. Some studies have even found that newborns tend to resemble their mothers more than their fathers.
It appears that natural selection does help individual genes to spread, by subtly biasing the offspring sex ratio so that beautiful people, who can benefit from having a daughter, do indeed have slightly more daughters than ugly people, who cannot so benefit.
Andrews found that men often favor women who resemble their mother when choosing mates. Similarly, the study showed that women prefer male faces that resemble their fathers. These findings were later reported in a 2002 New Scientist magazine article titled “Like Father Like Husband."
There are many reasons kids seek attention: they're bored, tired, hungry, or in need of quality time with their parents. But the reasons your child acts this way aren't as important as learning how to respond when they do. Keep in mind that such attention-seeking behavior is normal.
Information Harrell sent The Daily Reveille via e-mail says past studies have shown that children who are more attractive have genes that are more likely to survive, and unconsciously parents favor the child with the better genes.
Sometimes children end up looking exactly like one parent, or even closely mirroring a sibling, and sometimes they don't resemble anyone in the family. It's all entirely possible. Kids share 50% of their DNA with each of their parents and siblings, so there's plenty of room for variation.
The developing ability to mirror, repeat, and practice the actions of others, either immediately or later. At around 8 months of age, children imitate simple actions and expressions of others during interactions.
They Are Trying to Communicate
And there staring is their way to communicate. Babies can't quite interact yet for the first few months, so their staring is their way of communicating with you. A baby looking zoned out may be a way of communicating that they are sleepy.
Somewhere around 2 months of age, baby will look at you and flash a full-on smile that's guaranteed to make your heart swell. Doctors call that kind of smile a “social smile” and describe it as one that's “either a reaction, or trying to elicit a reaction,” Stavinoha says. In other words, baby is interacting with you!
Reassure your child – and yourself
Here are some phrases you can use to reassure them: “They are just curious, maybe they know someone who has the same condition.” “Staring is rude. You don't need to worry about someone who is being rude.”
Imaginary friends allow children to explore a make-believe world that they create all by themselves. In fact, children with make-believe friends might be more imaginative and more likely to enjoy fantasy play and magical stories.
Genes related to attractiveness differ by sex
Several genes were identified across individuals that were measured as "attractive", and, interestingly, these genes differed across the sexes. In women, specific genetic variants associated with beauty were also related to genes impacting body mass.