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Westermarck effect

Westermarck effect noun: a hypothetical psychological effect through which people who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives become desensitized to later sexual attraction. It is one explanation for the incest taboo.

Noun

Westermarck effect

  1. A hypothetical psychological effect through which people who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives become desensitized to later sexual attraction. It is one explanation for the incest taboo.

Origin of Westermarck effect

First hypothesized by Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck (1862–1939) in his book The History of Human Marriage (1891).

Questions about Westermarck effect

What does Westermarck effect mean?
Westermarck effect means a hypothetical psychological effect through which people who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives become desensitized to later sexual attraction. It is one explanation for the incest taboo.
What part of speech is Westermarck effect?
Westermarck effect is a noun.

Words near Westermarck effect in the dictionary

  1. westerly
  2. Westerman
  3. Westermann
  4. Westermanns
  5. Westermans
  6. Westermarck effect
  7. Westermark sign
  8. westermost
  9. western
  10. Western Abenaki
  11. Western Abnaki

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Westermarck effect (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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