I was telling Rich, Brad, Scott and Chris at dinner last night about research I read that studies why we find incest disgusting. From the CNN article:
Researchers who wanted to find out why it is not only taboo to kiss your sister, but also disgusting, said Wednesday that they have discovered why in a discovery that challenges some basic tenets of Freudian theory.
The instinct evolved naturally and cannot be taught, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the University of California Santa Barbara wrote in their report in the journal Nature.
Spending time in the same household and watching your mother care for your brother or sister is all it takes. This is all subconscious, of course, reported the researchers, who worked with Debra Lieberman of the University of Hawaii.
"We went in search of a kin-detection system because some of the most important theories in evolutionary biology said such a thing should exist," Cosmides said in a telephone interview.
"It should regulate both altruism and incest disgust."
Humans have an inbuilt system that does both, they found.
The researchers questioned 600 volunteers, mixing up the questions so that the volunteers did not know the subject of the research. Whatever this kin-detection system is, it appears to be all sub-conscious. It is not seemingly affected by blood relation, either; half-siblings and step-siblings were equally affected as full-siblings by the same factors.
I never took a psychology course, but it is my understanding that Freud taught about sexual feelings towards one’s own mother and siblings. He thought that incest was natural, and society fought those natural urges. Cosmides has her own thoughts on Freud:
Cosmides said Freud had a possible reason for his own feelings — he had a wet nurse who cuddled and breastfed him: "Who their brain thinks is mom is different from who they consciously believe is mom. For them it is quite reasonable that they have an attraction to their mothers."
It is definitely some interesting research. What do you think?
When we were talking about this, it reminded me of research I read for a project I did in law school. I wrote an amendment to the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act as regards consanguineous marriage (incestuous marriage)1. It retained the prohibition on whole- or half-blood sibling marriage and removed the blanket prohibition on adoptive marriage. Instead, my amendment prohibited
Consanguinity statutes, including Illinois’s, are often over-inclusive and under-inclusive. That is, they ban any marriage between adoptive siblings, but don’t ban step-sibling adoption. I can’t remember if the theory behind the research Mark is talking about was readily available in 2003, but the research does seem to largely support the view I took back then.
1 It was actually dorkier than that. I wrote an amendment to the Marriage and Divorce Act for the State of Reserve. Reserve, because it was Case Western Reserve University.
What’s with the dollar sign?
@Rich: The dollar sign is used to signify a variable in a few programming languages.
Does it signify that “incest” is a variable or that there is a variable before “incest” or something else entirely? What’s with the “@” before my name? Are you making fun of me?
I think it’s not surprising that this kin-detection might exist. Did they have any research from other animal species to compare?
@Rich: The ‘@’ signifies that this part of the comment is directed at you. In the case of the title, yes, $incest signifies that it is a variable, and that the value of YUCK is assigned to it. It’s just a little programming humor to go along with the psych research.
@Al: As far as any research comparing humans with animals, I am not aware of any. I’ll have to check.
is it incest to date your dads girlfriends daughter with them to agreeing with it and me not living there
@madman: No, unless of course your dad is related to his girlfriend.
@Mark: See how I used “@’s”? I’m learning. Yippee!
@Rich: Dork.