ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

›› 2011, Vol. 19 ›› Issue (10): 1471-1479.

• 研究前沿 • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Baby Schema and Sex Differences in Its Process

LUO Li-Zhu;LUO Yu;JU En-Xia;MA Wen-Juan;LI Hong   

  1. (School of Psychology, Southwest University; Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China)
  • Received:2010-12-13 Revised:1900-01-01 Online:2011-10-15 Published:2011-10-15
  • Contact: LI Hong

Abstract: Baby schema (or Kindchenschema), referring to a kind of people’s mental representation about a set of infant-like physical features, such as large head, big eyes and round face, can induce a positive emotion and care-giving behaviors towards the infant. Such a function plays an important role in improving the survival of individuals and satisfying the need to reproduce. There exist sex differences in people’s reaction to infant faces, of which females are more sensitive to baby schema than males. The reasons may be attributed to their different brain structures, female-specific emotive responses, female reproductive hormones, and the early environment. Future studies should go further in disclosing the special neural mechanisms of baby schema, and explore the relationship between maternal love and baby schema on the basis of the sex differences.

Key words: baby schema, infant face, sex differences, positive emotion, caring behavior