48 preschoolers spontaneously characterized 32 mythological hybrid (part-human, part-animal) figures. Hybrids characterized as females tended to be human-headed rather than animal-headed, presumably because of the sex-discriminating value of human cranial and facial hair. Female characterizations were more frequent for beardless than for bearded hybrids, and for hybrids with long cranial hair than for hybrids with short or medium-length cranial hair. Possible reasons for the sex-discriminating potency of cranial hair cues, and especially of facial hair cues, are considered.
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