Kids Are More Likely to Trust Attractive Adults

Attractive adults gain the trust of children more easily, claims a latest study published in the British Journal of Development Psychology.

A latest study conducted by Igor Bascandziev from Harvard University suggests that an adult with attractive face is more likely to gain the trust of kids when compared to an adult with an unattractive face. The study states that both boys and girls are more likely to believe answers given to them by people with an appealing face.

"When learning about the world, children rely heavily on information provided to them by other people," explained Igor, "Previous studies have shown children can be influenced by a range of factors such as whether the adult was correct in the past or if they are familiar to them. Our study wanted to examine whether children would trust an attractive stranger over an unattractive stranger."

The study was conducted on 32 children who were around 4-5 years old. Researchers showed the children 12 pictures of different women who were ranked based on their attractiveness by a group of undergraduate students.

The kids were shown two pictures -one attractive one unattractive- and were asked to pick one who they thought would know the answer. The researchers noticed that more number of kids especially the girls selected the attractive faces when asked they were asked to choose a person who they thought would know the answer to a task.

The researcher concludes saying, "The gender difference could relate to boys not paying as much attention to the initial presentation of the faces or other research has pointed to the fact that females have superior face perception. It would be interesting to see future research explore whether children would continue favouring the more attractive face even when they have evidence that the more attractive face is unreliable and the less attractive informant is a reliable informant."