Research+Paper

For my research paper, I went into depth in discovering first the details of Freud’s theories. I learned a lot through this process, both about my topic and about other related ones. I then set out to discover exactly what most experts thought of my essential question. The results surprised me, because they were not what I had expected and did not fit in with my initial ideas. However, I ultimately learned that there is no real right or wrong, and that it is still difficult to figure or reason out why two people are attracted to one another. This research paper taught me to be patient, and required a lot of hard work in the researching and writing process. Research Paper Sigmund Freud made several discoveries and developments in the study of the human mind and its functions. Among his many theories that tie childhood experiences to adult behavior, one touches upon what women and men look for in potential mates. There are a number of different factors involved in the equation of human attraction, but Freud proposed the theory that people attempt to recreate their childhoods (Perron). He suggested that girls are attracted to men that remind them of their fathers and boys are attracted to girls that remind them of their mothers. Various sources dispute whether this attraction is grounded purely in physical appearance, characteristics alone, or in a combination of both options. Reasons for the tendency to marry spouses similar to parents can range from comfortable familiarity, righting old wrongs, or reclaiming personal history (Perron). While there is evidence that supports Freud’s theory of incest-like sources, other reputable psychologists have proposed alternative roots of attraction. There remains no distinct verdict as to what draws one human to another. Overall, psychologists seem to agree that people are attracted to potential mates who remind them of their parents based on physical facial features. However, the reasoning behind this attraction remains unknown.

Since the early 1900’s, people have argued over whether incest taboos are in place to counteract humans’ natural attraction to those who are kin, or whether these taboos developed as an evolutionary tool in order to avoid inbred illnesses (McNally, 2007). Various ancient cultures around the world developed taboos against incest and with good reason- recessive and dangerous illnesses spread quickly through close family members (Minkel, 2010). The Finnish psychologist Edward Westermarck proposed a theory that eliminated Freud’s, suggesting that people who grow up together find each other unattractive (Minkel, 2010). More and more evolutionary psychologists are siding with Westermarck, saying that we subconsciously analyze how closely related we are to a person, and if we spent a lot of time with them in the critical period of growing up we immediately make the effort to avoid incest (Minkel, 2010). Studies have shown that married couples who grew up together in the same family in Taiwan are less attracted to each other and have less children the couples that were raised separately (Minkel, 2010). In a sense, Westermarck’s theory completely contradicts Freud’s, citing familial resemblance and growing up with someone as reasons that initiate the repulsion mechanism rather than attraction (Minkel, 2010).

Freud’s theory is based on his set of psychosexual stages of development. According to Freud there are certain erogenous zones that respond to erotic stimulation that change or develop as a child ages. The first is the oral stage. Spanning from birth till the baby is about one and a half years old, the newborn nurses and is stimulated through the mouth (Stevenson, 2001). This is followed by the anal stage, when the child struggles with obeying his or her parents and their physical capabilities (Stevenson, 2001). Next comes the stage most related to the initial question, the phallic stage. In the phallic stage conflict arises, called the //Oedipus complex// in boys and the //Electra complex// in women (Stevenson, 2001). This conflict is based on the child’s awareness and interest in their genitals and the genitals of others, and involves an unconscious desire to compete with the same-sex parent for the opposite-sex’s attention and affection (Stevenson, 2001). In both situations, the child comes to realize that they cannot posses their opposite-sex parent, and therefore decide to vicariously posses them through their same-sex parent through imitation (Stevenson, 2001). They seek mates similar to the one that the parent they are identifying with has chosen. After the phallic stage, children fall into a latency period and focus their energy on friends and school and do not return to their psychosexual development until puberty (Stevenson, 2001). The phallic stage is when humans develop their attraction for a parent, which then becomes suppressed until the child is ready to search for a mate of their own.

Other sources recognize that there is more to attraction than random chance and unexplainable stomach butterflies, but do not trace the biological desires back the way Freud does. Some view attraction from a purely evolutionary standpoint. This theory states that from the moment a person perceives someone as a possible romantic interest, they immediately begin trying to determine whether or not the mate in question is exhibiting traits ideal for producing suitable offspring (Female Forum, 2011). Certain characteristics draw people to one another, and these feelings of desire come from the primitive instinct to procreate the human species. While society’s definition of beauty changes over the decades, the brain has developed a way to look beyond these fads and identify individuals that will benefit a person in the long run (Female Forum, 2011). It is difficult to trace attraction to its source, as it may come from biological, emotional, and/or cultural beginnings (Female Forum, 2011).

Contrary these other ideas, lab experiments have been conducted that yield data supporting Freud’s theory that we are attracted to people that physically remind us of our parents (or ourselves). Researcher R. Chris Fraley at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign conducted an experiment in which college students ranked pictures of people based on their attractiveness. A subliminal picture of their opposite-sex parent preceded some images while other subliminal pictures were of strangers (Minkel, 2010). Students rated the pictures that followed the quick flashes of their parents higher or more attractive than the pictures that followed images of strangers (Minkel, 2010). In the next experiment, Fraley showed students images that had their own faces morphed with a stranger’s to different degrees. The higher the percentage of the participant’s face the more attractive they rated the image (Minkel, 2010). Finally, Fraley lied to half of the participants telling them that they would be viewing pictures morphed with their own faces (Minkel, 2010). The half that thought they were viewing morphed images rated the pictures as less attractive than the group that was not given this (false) information (Minkel, 2010). In order to explain his findings and results, Fraley observed that familiarity is a powerful tool of attraction only when we do not consciously know where it is coming from (Minkel, 2010). If a person is aware of the cause of familiarity, like if they grew up with their partner, the couple becomes habituated to each other and the passion dies quickly (Minkel, 2010). Studies show that humans trust and align themselves with people who have more common alleles (McNally, 2010). These experiments reveal that subconscious mechanisms drive us to be attracted to features that remind us of our own or our parents’, but cultural taboos against incest override these primitive desires (McNally, 2010).

The experiments described support the idea that we are attracted to our parents or kin, but do not do well at indicating a reason why. Whether or not Freud’s suggested psychosexual stages of development are accurate is not clear based on those studies. Attraction can be generated from a familiarity with the parent of the opposite sex’s physical appearance as well as personality. People are comfortable with the parents they grew up with, and whether they like it or not, are attracted to those that resemble their parents (Perron, 2009). Psychotherapist Elayne Savage says that this comfortable familiarity is from where people derive the phrase, “it feels like I’ve known them my whole life!” (Perron, 2009) A Hungarian researcher studied the facial construction of fifty-two families and found a correlation between men and their fathers-in-law and women and their mothers-in-law (Perron, 2009). Another possible reason could be the desire to right old wrongs. Women who were deserted by their fathers subconsciously seek emotionally unavailable husbands, and men with hypercritical mothers tend to end up with women who pick on them a lot (Perron, 2009). People who have had poor relationships with their parents try to recreate their childhood and make things better through their relationships with their spouses, but experts say that this is a bad idea and usually sets a relationship up for failure (Perron, 2009). The next question challenges the differences between physical and emotional attraction. Is the familiarity and comfort we seek in our parents’ physical features or emotional characteristics? Or both? Whatever the reasoning behind the attraction to ones’ parents may be, Freud was clearly onto something as multiple experiments have proven his theory.

In the end, attraction remains a mystery. We have indications that suggest that people are attracted to potential mates that remind them of their parents, but we remain unsure as to why. Perhaps we will never fully understand how and why two humans are attracted to one another. It is safe to say that attraction is based on some sort of combination of biological and evolutionary drives and the relationship that a person develops with their parents as they grow up.