1. 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.

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

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

5. 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?

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

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

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

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

10. Experiment 1 36 34
Participant
Participant’s mother

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

12. Results

13. “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?”

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

15. 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?”

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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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.

20. 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

21. 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?

22. 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?

23. 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.

24. 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.