Background: Parent-child facial resemblance, as an important cue of paternal uncertainty, may impact fathers’ parenting behaviors and further affect children’s academic performance. However, mothers are almost 100% confident of the blood relationship with their child and care less about the facial resemblance cues.
Methods: To test these hypotheses, the present study recruited 122 junior high school students and measured the perceived facial resemblance with their parents, the parents’ parenting style, academic performance, and demographic variables.
Results: The results showed that the perceived father-child facial resemblance rather than the mother-child facial resemblance significantly influenced adolescents’ academic performance. Further, fathers’ caring parenting style mediated the relationship between the perceived father-child facial resemblance and academic performance.
Conclusion: These findings not only supported the paternal uncertainty hypothesis but also extended the parental investment theory.
Keywords: perceived father–child facial resemblance, academic performance, caring parenting, paternal uncertainty