CLASS DEMONSTRATION Westermarck, Freud, and the incest taboo: Does familiar resemblance activate sexual attraction Based on: Fraley & Marks. (2010). Westermarck, Freud, and the incest taboo: Does familiar resemblance activate sexual attraction. Pers Soc Psyc Bull.

Boy meets girl Proximity Similarity Sexual imprinting (adopted daughters’ husband more similar to adopted fathers)

Why don’t we want to have sex with our parents or siblings?

Why is there an incest taboo? “A cultural rule or norm that prohibits sexual relations between closely related persons.” Why is there an incest taboo?

Westermarck’s proposal Evolutionary biology: Genetic variability improves survival rate Evolutionary psychology: Psychological mechanisms have evolved to detect genetic similarity (kinship estimator)

Freud disagrees Incest taboos exist precisely because there are innate incestuous urges

Evolutionary Psychodynamic Maybe both are right. Freud Social Psychology Evolutionary Psychodynamic Perspective

Evolutionary Psychodynamic Perspective People are attracted to familiar things Familiar “things” include familiar people

Experiment 1 36 34 Participant Participant’s mother

Procedure Control group: Another participant’s parent 1000 ms 17 ms “How sexually attractive is this person to you?”

Results

“How sexually attractive is this person to you?” Experiment 2 50 self-target morphs Participant (“self”) Target 45% (self) <----------------------------------------> 0% (self) “How sexually attractive is this person to you?”

Results Interim conclusion: People are attracted to kin, which include themselves!

Experiment 3 Taboo-aware condition “We morphed your face with other faces” “How sexually attractive is this person to you?” Taboo-aware condition [nothing mentioned] “How sexually attractive is this person to you?”

Results When taboo is activated, people are less attracted to self-morphs.

Summary Freud was right about the outcome, but not about the process Sexual attraction to kin is the result of fundamental and evolutionarily old social- cognitive mechanisms

Let’s break down the components of a scientific presentation Introduction What is the broader issue the authors are investigating? This is sometimes not written explicitly, that’s why you need to read beyond the article and draw links between textbook, seminars, personal life, and the article itself Try to hook your audience in with the phenomenon

Let’s break down the components of a scientific presentation Introduction What are the theories involved? Explain them well. Do not simply memorize the explanations written (surface understanding). Strive for deep understanding. Understand the logic.

Let’s break down the components of a scientific presentation Method Your goal is to translate what is on paper and get your audience to imagine what the participants actually experienced Simulate the process in your audience. Show them what participants actually experienced Minimal text, maximal illustrations

Let’s break down the components of a scientific presentation Results Learn how to draw good graphs. Google it. Walk your audience through the graphs. What do the axes mean? What do the means mean? Which comparisons should the audience focus?

Let’s break down the components of a scientific presentation Summary What are the things you want your audience to remember? Why is the research important?

Let’s break down the components of a scientific presentation Discussion Unlike a paper, a professional scientific presentation rarely has a discussion segment. There is usually a Q&A session. But in our class we will have a discussion section.

Class discussion At what point does attraction become sexual attraction? Are the results an artifact of language? Incest (voluntary) does exist, though in very small numbers. Why? It’s not clear what question was specifically asked. Participants were asked to rate on “sexual attractiveness”; one could rate themselves as sexually attractive to others (i.e., high sex appeal), but not necessarily is sexually attracted to them.