Abstract: The role of facial self-resemblance in kinship altruism behavior and mate choice has been investigated according to Hamilton’s inclusive fitness theory. While many researches indicate that self-facial resemblance promotes kinship altruism, its role in mate choice is quite controversy. While the evidence of assortative mating claims facial self-resemblance preference in mate choice, the experimental data are inconsistent. Some researches confirm the facial self-preference effect, but the others do not. However the recent research indicates that the facial self-preference effect in mate choice is an implicit process. As soon as the subjects realize that the composites have themselves in it the effect disappears. Another research claims that the facial self-preference effect depends on what strategies the subjects take on tradeoffs between absolute and relative qualities of potential mates. Based on the behavioral data, neural implications are introduced to further understanding the nature of these two kinds of social behavior.

Key words: facial self-resemblance, inclusive fitness, mate choice, kinship selection