Westermarck, Freud, and the incest taboo: does familial resemblance activate sexual attraction?

The relationship between familial resemblance and sexual attraction: an update on Westermarck, Freud, and the incest taboo.

Foundational principles of evolutionary theory predict that inbreeding avoidance mechanisms should exist in all species--including humans--in which close genetic relatives interact during periods of sexual maturity. Voluminous empirical evidence, derived from diverse taxa, supports this prediction. Despite such results, Fraley and Marks claim to provide evidence that humans are sexually attract...

Incest avoidance, the incest taboo, and social cohesion: revisiting Westermarck and the case of the Israeli kibbutzim.

During the past 50 years, a consensus has been forming around Edward Westermarck's idea that incest avoidance results from an aversion that develops when individuals are brought up in propinquity. The argument here presented counters this emerging consensus. Reexamining the case of the Israeli kibbutzim, the authors show that individuals who grew up in the kibbutzim's communal education system ...

The evolution of human incest avoidance mechanisms: an evolutionary psychological approach

Introduction The scientific study of human incest and its avoidance has had a peculiar history. Although the topic of incest is one in which a multitude of leading 20 th century scientists and social theorists, from Freud to Levi-Strauss, have invested great significance, it seems fair to say that regress rather than progress has typified the field throughout most of the century, with forward m...

The Biological Foundations of the Incest Taboo

Freud‟s Conceptualization of the Social World: Psychology Recapitulating Sociology or Sociology Recapitulating Psychology?

This paper articulates Sigmund Freud‟s conceptualization of the social world by surveying and critically examining four of his major sociological works: Civilized‟ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness (Freud, 1908/1991b), Totem and Taboo (Freud, 1913/1946), The Future of An Illusion (Freud, 1927/1991d), and Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud, 1930/1991a). The paper also embeds the de...