Definition
A hypothetical psychological effect through which sexual attraction becomes less between people who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives.
Introduction
Widely applied by evolutionary researchers to the explanation for human incest avoidance, Westermarck effect hypothesized that human tend to develop a strong sexual aversion to those they live closely with during infancy and early childhood. This hypothesis was first proposed by Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck in his book The History of Human Marriage (1891), described as a mechanism of inbreeding avoidance.
Westermarck effect is also called negative sexual imprinting, in contrast to positive sexual imprinting. Quite a few evidences have shown the rationality of the Westermarck effect.
The Evolutionary Function of Inbreeding Avoidance
It was hypothesized by Westermarck that...
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Reference
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Hou, B., Wang, Y. (2018). Westermarck Effect and Imprinting. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3618-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3618-1
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