Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

How do humans recognise kin?

Objective

Kinship moderates important social outcomes, such as interpersonal violence and sexual behaviour, but how do you know who your kin are? On the surface, this appears to be a simple question, but the specific cues and cognitive systems that mediate these complex relationships are yet to be understood. This pioneering project will combine biological theories regarding the essential role of kinship in regulating social and sexual behaviour with advanced methods from experimental psychology, genetics, acoustics, computer graphics and experimental economics, to develop and test the first comprehensive model of human kin recognition.

Early research on human kin recognition typically investigated the effect of a single kinship cue on one domain of behaviour and in one relationship type. For example, research on the Westermarck Effect focusses on the effect of co-residence on sexual aversion among siblings. The proposed project will investigate a diverse range of potential kinship cues (e.g. contextual, phenotypic and cognitive), both relevant behavioural domains (i.e. prosocial and sexual), and several relationship types (e.g. primary and secondary; consanguine, affine and adoptive). The resulting model will allow for complex interactions, such as conditional or domain-specific cue use, that are suggested by work on kin recognition in other species. This, in turn, will allow for a greater understanding of the mechanisms underpinning how humans recognise and respond to kin.

The project will also produce a quantitative model of how family resemblance is expressed in the face, which will be used to develop novel methodologies for assessing family resemblance from face images and experimentally creating realistic and biologically plausible “virtual relatives” using computer graphics.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2014-CoG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 984 776,00
Address
UNIVERSITY AVENUE
G12 8QQ Glasgow
United Kingdom

See on map

Region
Scotland West Central Scotland Glasgow City
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 984 776,00

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0