cue-based and context-based mechanisms, such as familiarity and imprinting, whereas other researchers argue that specialized kin recognition mechanisms, such as phenotype matching, are widespread in facilitating nepotism.

Because cue-based 'recognition' predominates in social mammals, outcomes are non-deterministic in relation to actual genetic kinship, instead outcomes simply reliably correlate with genetic kinship in an organism's typical conditions. A well-known human example of