Parental misperception of youngest child size
After the birth of a second child many parents report that their first child appears to grow suddenly and substantially larger. Why is this? One possibility is that this is simply a contrast effect that stems from comparing the older sibling to the new baby: “everything looks big compared to a newbo...
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| Published in: | Current biology Vol. 23; no. 24; pp. R1085 - R1086 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
England
Elsevier Inc
16-12-2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | After the birth of a second child many parents report that their first child appears to grow suddenly and substantially larger. Why is this? One possibility is that this is simply a contrast effect that stems from comparing the older sibling to the new baby: “everything looks big compared to a newborn”. But, such reports could be the result of a far more interesting biopsychological phenomenon. More specifically, we hypothesized that human parents are subject to a kind of ‘baby illusion’ under which they routinely misperceive their youngest child as smaller than he/she really is, regardless of the child’s age. Then, when a new baby is born, this illusion ceases and the parent sees, for the first time, the erstwhile youngest at its true size. By this account the apparent growth results from the mismatch of the parent’s now accurate perception with the stored memories of earlier misperceptions. Here we report that the baby illusion is a real and commonly occurring effect that recasts our understanding of how infantile features motivate parental caregiving [1]. |
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| Bibliography: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.10.071 |
| ISSN: | 0960-9822 1879-0445 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.cub.2013.10.071 |