Peer Acceptance and Facial Recognition

Abstract

Summary In three experiments children judged which of two unfamiliar faces showed the same person as an inspection photograph. In the task an emotional expression was used as a confounding factor. Ss in Experiment 1 were 12 boys and 12 girls at each of the age levels 7, 8, and 9 years. In Experiment 2 comparisons were made among unpopular children who used avoidant or approach strategies and a normal control group (n = 48 boys and girls, 10 to 12 years of age). Task difficulty was increased and comparisons were made between an avoidant and an approach group in Experiment 3 (n = 32 boys and girls, 10 to 12 years of age). The results show that young children encoded unfamiliar faces in terms of striking isolated features and that avoidant children made more errors than approach and normal children.