"Attraction runs in the family"

[Not A Communist Shill]

Attraction runs in the family

The 'incest taboo' is the aversion to being sexually attracted to our own family and evolutionary psychology has suggested it is an inherited adaptation to promote genetic diversity. A brilliant study just published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin provides evidence that this is actually a cultural phenomenon, received wisdom if you like, because when awareness of the relationship is hidden, people find individuals who resemble their family more sexually attractive.

[jughead]

Rejected: People find people who look like their family is a wide fucking criteria.

What has been substantiated, is that people like people who don't look too different than themselves. There is a happy medium of not too different and not too similar, and that also has a genetic//immunological theoretical framework you mention.
This could be warped into "looking like their family".

[Not A Communist Shill]

The experiment was also done in relation to the person taking part, not just their family.

[MatthewZ]

I'd like to see if this was based on familiarity with family members or the genetic relation to them.

[crazedrat]

Evolutionary psychology is overrated. It often seems like speculative, incidental associations made outside the burden of proof. Not to mention it has no therapeutic value.

Rejected: People find people who look like their family is a wide fucking criteria.

Yet you haven't read the study. Scientists aren't stupid. Generally they account for obvious flaws.. otherwise they don't get published.

[xerx]

No lol, a lot of them are pretty dumb in their own way. In terms of being rabidly biased, arrogant, etc. There's a lot of celebrity-ism too that goes on, especially in the social sciences. It gets pathetic. Even the titles to many journal articles are deliberately crafted to get attention and reactions.

Yeah there's been A LOT of that on this board as of late.

[FDG]

The reasoninig behind this argument is usually reconducted to some kind of "evolutionary" constraint. Basically, since your parents choose each other and you are the byproduct of their reproduction, you are likely to choose a person which is similar to who has ben chosen by your parents, which means that there's an high chance that this person will look like them / one of them. The crux of the matter is: can attraction towards a given "figure" be inherited (thus, purely "nature", no nurture)? I personally don't know, but there doesn't seem to be such a big evidence in favor of this hypothesis, since many populations are extremely mixed.

[redbaron]

I've heard that you're more likely to marry someone who's personality unconsciously reminds you of your parents. Kind of creepy if you think about it.

yeah. I was really attracted to this SEI guy once and I couldn't figure out why then I realized it was because he reminded me of my dad.

[Skeptic]

From a socionics standpoint, most families I know usually represent a quadra or its bordering quadras, so (given that representatives of a certain type may have roughly similiar looks aka VI) it's possible this is natural attraction to members with similiar quadra values as your parents.

That is, disregarding everything they say in that article... I didn't see anything convincing in it. It was more like a series of declarations. The above is just an explanation for possible statistic gathering problems...

[Creepy-Pied Piper]

Removed at User Request

[FDG]

I never liked girls with hair like mine, long, black and curly. Wicked shrews.

Easy solution: cut your hair

[mu4]

We learn a lot of good behavioral things that isn't part of our genetics, like wiping our butts and making foie gras.

[Creepy-Pied Piper]

Removed at User Request

[Creepy-]

Easy solution: cut your hair

i like it long

[intjguy]

In the Middle East a lot of people marry their cousins, but if you ask 'em all some will say "Cousin for wife makes idiot for baby."

[Creepy-]

In the Middle East a lot of people marry their cousins, but if you ask 'em all some will say "Cousin for wife makes idiot for baby."

this explains a lot