Sexual Attraction vs. Social Attraction

The BBC reports:

Same face builds trust, not lust

Some characteristics of the student's face were replicated on the man's face Similar facial features make people trust, but not fancy, each other, research has suggested. Of 144 students studied, the majority picked individuals who most looked like them to be the most trustworthy.

But when it came to sexual attraction, most picked those with differing facial characteristics, said psychologists at Aberdeen University, UK. The results suggest that people steer clear of those who "look like family" to avoid inbreeding.

The students were shown a series of paired faces. However, they were unaware that shortly before the experiment many of the photographs had been subtly altered by psychologists to resemble the student before they looked at them.

These results back the notion that people trust kin but avoid them in a sexual setting due to the costs of inbreeding.

"This supports the idea that people - perhaps unwittingly - detect facial resemblance," said researcher Dr Lisa DeBruine. "It means to them, on some level, that this person is 'family' and they are more trusting of them."

The similar faces were also described as sexually unattractive by the students. "These results back the notion that people trust kin but avoid them in a sexual setting due to the costs of inbreeding."

I'm not sure I trust the methodology, but the results make a lot of sense to me. It seems to me that sexual attraction and social attraction tend to work in opposite directions. "Opposites attract" but "Birds of a feather flock together." Either Dear Abby or Ann Landers (or both) used to advise their readers to marry somebody who was your social match but psychological opposite.

A common movie story is the wealthy blonde girl who is supposed to marry the wealthy blonde boy from her country club, but she instead runs off with the dangerous dark haired boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Indeed, the single most popular story in Western culture might be this Romeo and Juliet tale of lovers from warring extended families.

Steve Sailer's homepage and blog is iSteve.com