What psychological phenomenon states that when two people live in close proximity during the first years in the life of either one, they are desensitized to sexual attraction?
"Westermarck effect The Westermarck effect, or reverse sexual imprinting, is a hypothetical psychological effect through which people who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives become desensitized to sexual attraction. This phenomenon was first hypothesized by Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck in his book ""The History of Human Marriage"" (1891) as one explanation for the incest taboo. Observations interpreted as evidence for the Westermarck effect have since been made in many places and cultures, including in the Israeli kibbutz system, and the Chinese Shim-pua marriage customs, as well as in biologically-related families. In the case"
"the Chronicle of a Homing Pigeon,"" published in ""Animal Heroes"" (1905): ""Pigeon marriages are arranged somewhat like those of mankind. Propinquity is the first thing: force the pair together for a time and let nature take its course."" Propinquity In social psychology, propinquity (; from Latin ""propinquitas"", ""nearness"") is one of the main factors leading to interpersonal attraction. It refers to the physical or psychological proximity between people. Propinquity can mean physical proximity, a kinship between people, or a similarity in nature between things (""like-attracts-like""). Two people living on the same floor of a building, for example, have a higher"
"Propinquity In social psychology, propinquity (; from Latin ""propinquitas"", ""nearness"") is one of the main factors leading to interpersonal attraction. It refers to the physical or psychological proximity between people. Propinquity can mean physical proximity, a kinship between people, or a similarity in nature between things (""like-attracts-like""). Two people living on the same floor of a building, for example, have a higher propinquity than those living on different floors, just as two people with similar political beliefs possess a higher propinquity than those whose beliefs strongly differ. ""Propinquity"" is also one of the factors, set out by Jeremy Bentham, used"
"According to the law of attraction by Byrne (1971), attraction towards a person is positively related to the proportion of 'attitude similarity' associated with that person. Based on the cognitive consistency theories, difference in attitudes and interests can lead to dislike and avoidance whereas similarity in attitudes promotes social attraction. Miller (1972) pointed out that attitude similarity activates the perceived attractiveness and favorability information from each other, whereas dissimilarity would reduce the impact of these cues. The studies by Jamieson, Lydon and Zanna (1987–88) showed that attitude similarity could predict how people evaluate their respect for each other, and also"
"genes in a population increasing vulnerability to infectious diseases (see Major histocompatibility complex and sexual selection). The biological costs of incest also depend largely on the degree of genetic proximity between the two relatives engaging in incest. This fact may explain why the cultural taboo generally includes prohibitions against sex between close relatives but less often includes prohibitions against sex between more distal relatives. Children born of close relatives have decreased survival. Many mammal species, including humanity's closest primate relatives, avoid incest. The Westermarck effect, first proposed by Edvard Westermarck in 1891, is the theory that children reared together, regardless"
"The Proximity Principle Within the realm of social psychology, the proximity principle accounts for the tendency for individuals to form interpersonal relations with those who are close by. Theodore Newcomb first documented this effect through his study of the acquaintance process, which demonstrated how people who interact and live close to each other will be more likely to develop a relationship. Leon Festinger also illustrates the proximity principle and propinquity (the state of being close to someone or something) by studying the network of attraction within a series of residential housing units at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Both of"
"to obtain balance in a relationship. Additionally, perceived but not actual similarity was found to predict interpersonal attraction during a face-to-face initial romantic encounter. In a 1988 study, Lydon, Jamieson & Zanna suggest that interpersonal similarity and attraction are multidimensional constructs in which people are attracted to people similar to themselves in demographics, physical appearance, attitudes, interpersonal style, social and cultural background, personality, preferred interests and activities, and communication and social skills. Newcomb's earlier 1961 study on college-dorm roommates also suggested that individuals with shared backgrounds, academic achievements, attitudes, values, and political views typically became friends. The matching hypothesis proposed"
"Matching hypothesis The matching hypothesis (also known as the matching phenomenon) is derived from the discipline of social psychology and was first proposed by Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues in 1966, which suggests why people become attracted to their partner. It claims that people are more likely to form and succeed in a committed relationship with someone who is equally socially desirable. This is often researched in the form of physical attraction. Successful couples of differing physical attractiveness may be together due to other matching variables that compensate for the difference in attractiveness. For instance, some men with wealth and"
"not unveil detestable traits in either person. If detestable traits are unveiled, familiarity will in fact breed contempt. It could be that interaction, rather than propinquity, that creates attraction. This concept of proximity is applicable to one’s everyday life since it has some dictation over the people one will meet and befriend within their life, as outlined in the aforementioned studies. The formation of friendships was further studied utilizing the population of 336 adolescents within a small and geographically isolated Swedish town. Through the completion of their study, the researchers concluded that social foci that provide constant and continual interaction"
"now outdated. An investigation of the early relationship between couples that experience what was formerly referred to as Paranoid Wife Syndrome, but not more widely referred to as Paranoid Personality Disorder, tends to show a strong attraction between the spouses when they first began their romantic relationship (Williams, Trick, & Troum, 1981). Both spouses might recount a strong compatibility between the two of them. These strong, positive feelings reflect the security needs of the spouses that developed out of their early experiences. They work well together as a couple because they complement one another's neurosis. Through the course of the"
"young children. Attachment theory focuses on the tendency of infants or children to ""seek proximity"" to a ""particular attachment figure"" (familiar caregiver), in situations of alarm or distress, behavior which appears to have survival value. This is known as a discriminatory or selective attachment. Subsequently, the child begins to use the caregiver as a base of security from which to explore the environment, returning periodically to the familiar person. Attachment is not the same as love and/or affection although they are often associated. Attachment and attachment behaviors tend to develop between the ages of six months and three years. Infants"
"ecstasy, and feelings of exhilaration that come from being reunited with the partner. Two people who are in an intimate relationship with one another are often called a couple, especially if the members of that couple have placed some degree of permanency to their relationship. These couples often provide the emotional security that is necessary for them to accomplish other tasks, particularly forms of labor or work. The use of empirical investigations in 1898 was a major revolution in social analysis. A study conducted by Monroe, examined the traits and habits of children in selecting a friend. Some of the"
"incestuous almost universally. Innate sexual aversion between siblings forms due to close association in childhood, in what is known as the Westermarck effect. Children who grow up together do not normally develop sexual attraction, even if they are unrelated, and conversely, siblings who were separated at a young age may develop sexual attraction. Thus, many cases of sibling incest, including accidental incest, concern siblings who were separated at birth or at a very young age. One study from New England has shown that roughly 10% of males and 15% of females had experienced some form of sexual contact with a"
"the family is denied the opportunity to tutor younger children, and there is a slight ""extra"" detriment for being the youngest child in a family. These effects are theoretically important, but the size of the effects is fairly small (amounting to a range of about 3 IQ points) Zajonc and a group of his colleagues did a study to try and evaluate how couples who have been together for 25 years (i.e. married couples) begin to develop similar facial features. The study involved 110 participants (55 couples) whose photographs were taken in their first year of marriage. The participants were"
"to personal attraction. One finding was that people tend to attribute positive qualities such as intelligence, competence, and warmth to individuals who have a pleasing physical appearance. The propinquity effect relies on the observation that: ""The more we see and interact with a person, the more likely he or she is to become our friend or sexual partner."" This effect is very similar to the mere exposure effect in that the more a person is exposed to a stimulus, the more the person likes it; however, there are exceptions. Familiarity can also occur without physical exposure. Recent studies show that"
"in the group as looking out for predators without being able to seriously compete with the stronger individuals. Punishing both parties in an incestous relation cannot even be beneficial for the genes of individuals punishing a somewhat more distant relative for mating with a closer relative, since punishing the closer relative as well is counterproductive to any function of protecting the closer relative and the health of its offspring (in a context where predation and starvation are significant factors, as opposed to a rich welfare state). Genetic sexual attraction theory is also incompatible with the theory of smell being a"
"of 5.76 per 1000 live births. The average infant mortality rate in the U.S. is 6.8 per 1000 live births. Attachment theory is primarily an evolutionary and ethological theory whereby the infant or child ""seeks proximity"" to a ""specified attachment figure"" in situations of alarm or distress for the purpose of survival. The forming of attachments is considered to be the foundation of the infant/child's capacity to form and conduct relationships throughout life. Attachment is not the same as love or affection although they often go together. Attachment and attachment behaviors tend to develop between the age of 6 months"
"a brother and sister are brought up separately, never meeting one another—they may find one another highly sexually attractive when they meet as adults or adolescents, according to the hypothesis of genetic sexual attraction. This supports the theory that the populations exhibiting the Westermarck effect became predominant because of the deleterious effects of inbreeding on those that did not. Sigmund Freud argued that as children, members of the same family naturally lust for one another (see Oedipus complex), making it necessary for societies to create incest taboos, but Westermarck argued the reverse, that the taboos themselves arise naturally as products"
"holds that the more exposure a stimulus gets, the more likeable it becomes. In a study on interpersonal attraction (Piercey and Piercey, 1972), 23 graduate psychology students, all from the same class, underwent 9 hours of sensitivity training in two groups. Students were given pre- and post-tests to rate their positive and negative attitudes toward each class member. Members of the same sensitivity training group rated each other higher in the post-test than they rated members of the other group in both the pre- and post-test, and members of their own group in the pre-test. The results indicated that the"
"for language acquisition), however, children lack any particular instantiation of language at birth, and must instead learn one in the their environment. The mating strategies of both sexes can be simplified into different psychological adaptations. There is extensive evidence that incest avoidance, which is the tendency to avoid sexual intercourse with close relatives is an evolved behavioural adaptation. Incest avoidance can be seen cross-culturally in humans, and is evident in wild animals. Evolutionary psychologists argue that incest avoidance adapted due to the greater chance of producing children with severe disabilities when mating with relatives, and because genetic variability offers an"
"propose that human genetic selection had favoured attachment behaviours since they increased infant-parent proximity, which in turn enhanced the chances for infant survival. Attachment is considered to be an inborn capacity of every exemplar of the human species. Individual differences in the quality of attachment emerge in the first years of life, and central to attachment theory is the idea that parenting, more specifically parental sensitive responsiveness to the infant's distress signals, determines whether children develop a secure or an insecure attachment relationship with their primary caregiver. Van IJzendoorn introduced in 1995 the quantitative model of the ‘transmission gap’ between"
"that unrelated people are less attracted to those genetically similar to them. However, in mice, this lack of attraction can be reversed by adoption. Whilst it has been documented that sexual attraction can occur between related individuals in some cases, it is not clear that calling this attraction GSA is appropriate. Critics of the hypothesis have called it pseudoscience. Amanda Marcotte of ""Salon"" has stated that the term is nothing but an attempt at sounding scientific while trying to minimize the taboo of incest. She also expressed that many news outlets have handled reports of the subject poorly by repeating"
"that this ""inertia effect"" is due to participants' psychological commitment to their initial judgments. Some psychological studies have shown that premarital cohabitation (living together before marriage) is associated with an decreased risk of divorce, and this has been termed the cohabitation effect. Researchers believe that one reason for this effect is that living together increases the inertia of the relationship - i.e., the likelihood that a couple will continue to stay together vs. break up. Inertia in cohabiting couples occurs because living together imposes constraints on a relationship (a shared lease, etc.) that make relationships harder to end. Therefore, a"
"women age 18–25 years felt they were at low risk of acquiring an STD. People both consciously and subconsciously seek to attract others with whom they can form deep relationships. This may be for companionship, procreation, or an intimate relationship. This involves interactive processes whereby people find and attract potential partners and maintain a relationship. These processes, which involve attracting one or more partners and maintaining sexual interest, can include: Sexual attraction is attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interest. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual's ability to attract the sexual"
"of an inbreeding avoidance mechanism is the Westermarck effect, in which unrelated individuals who happen to spend their childhood in the same household find each other sexually unattractive. Similarly, due to the cue-based mechanisms that mediate social bonding and cooperation, unrelated individuals who grow up together in this way are also likely to demonstrate strong social and emotional ties, and enduring altruism. The English evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton's theory of inclusive fitness, and the related theory of kin selection, were formalized in the 1960s and 1970s to explain the evolution of social behaviours. Hamilton's early papers, as well as"
"previous interpersonal goals research and finds support for interpersonal goals claims regarding the perceived similarity/attraction relationship. The findings extended Sunnafrank (1983, 1984, 1985) and Sunnafrank and Miller's (1981) claim that attitude similarity and attraction are unassociated in beginning communicative relationships. While their research supports this claim for attitude similarity revealed in pre-acquaintance, it also shows that this claim generalizes to more normally occurring perceptions of attitude similarity produced during initial relational stages. The results strongly suggested that traditional beliefs about, and theoretical interpretations of, the attitude similarity/attraction association are incorrect, at least regarding the initial acquaintance period. Another study, ""Predicted"
"variables they were also seen as more similar on a number of personality characteristics. This study found that the length of the average relationship was related to perceptions of similarity; the couples who were together longer were seen as more equal. This effect can be attributed to the fact that when time passes by couples become more alike through shared experiences, or that couples that are alike stay together longer. Similarity has effects on starting a relationship by initial attraction to know each other. It is shown that high attitude similarity resulted in a significant increase in initial attraction to"
"suppress thoughts about others. The results showed that love is more efficient in pushing out those rivals than sex. Research by the University of Pavia suggests that romantic love lasts for about a year (similar to limerence) before being replaced by a more stable, non-passionate ""companionate love."" In companionate love, changes occur from the early stage of love to when the relationship becomes more established and romantic feelings seem to end. However, research from Stony Brook University in New York suggests that some couples keep romantic feelings alive for much longer. Attachment styles that people develop as children can influence"
"that children perceived as more physically similar to their parents were grieved for more intensely than less similar children. Russell, Wells, and Rushton (1985) reanalyzed several previous studies on similarities between spouses and concluded there is higher similarity on the more heritable characteristics. Rushton examined blood group genes and found that sexually interacting couples had more similar blood group genes than randomly paired individuals. Rushton and Bons (2005) examined personality, attitude, and demographic characteristics for similarity among different groups of people. Monozygotic twins resembled one another (""r"" = 0.53) more than dizygotic twins (""r"" = 0.32), pairs of spouses (""r"""
"of attitudes shared correlates well with the degree of interpersonal attraction. Cheerful people like to be around other cheerful people and negative people would rather be around other negative people. A 2004 study, based on indirect evidence, concluded that humans choose mates based partly on facial resemblance to themselves. According to Morry's attraction-similarity model (2007), there is a lay belief that people with actual similarity produce initial attraction. The perceived similarity is either self-serving, as in a friendship, or relationship-serving, as in a romantic relationship. In a 1963 study, Theodore Newcomb pointed out that people tend to change perceived similarity"
"by sociologist Erving Goffman suggests that people are more likely to form long standing relationships with those who are equally matched in social attributes, like physical attractiveness. The study by researchers Walster and Walster supported the matching hypothesis by showing that partners who were similar in terms of physical attractiveness expressed the most liking for each other. Another study also found evidence that supported the matching hypothesis: photos of dating and engaged couples were rated in terms of attractiveness, and a definite tendency was found for couples of similar attractiveness to date or engage. Several studies support this evidence of"
"small percentage of people are not sexually attracted to anyone (asexuality). A study in 2004 placed the prevalence of asexuality at 1%. In the oft-cited and oft-criticized ""Sexual Behavior in the Human Male"" (1948) and ""Sexual Behavior in the Human Female"" (1953), by Alfred C. Kinsey et al., people were asked to rate themselves on a scale from completely heterosexual to completely homosexual. Kinsey reported that when the individuals' behavior as well as their identity are analyzed, most people appeared to be at least somewhat bisexual – i.e., most people have some attraction to either sex, although usually one sex"
"when one member of the relationship tells the other about positive life events and receive quality reactions and feedback from the partner (Gable, Reis, Impett, & Asher, 2004). Researchers such as Feeney and Noller question the stability of attachment style across the life span since studies that measured attachment styles at time points ranging from 2 weeks to 8 months found that 1 out of 4 adults' attachment style changed. Furthermore, a study by Lopez and Gormley found that attachment styles could change during the first year of college and that changes to more secure attachment styles were associated with"