Abstract
A study was carried out to examine how people react to acts of intimacy between parent and child. Based on an extensive series of studies reported in 1998 by Reis who found less intimate interactions between two men who are friends than between men or women or between two women who are friends, it was reasoned that intimacy between two males may violate norms of our culture, so it was predicted that people would react less favorably to intimacy between father and son than to intimacy between father and daughter, mother and daughter, or mother and son. Men (n = 19) and women (n=26), most of whom were 18-24 years of age, read versions of a mother or father having an intimate interaction (lap-sit, hair-stroke, hug/kiss) with an 11-yr.-old daughter or son and then rated the act on a 7-point scale from good to bad. As predicted, the undergraduates rated intimate interactions between father and son less favorably than those between father and daughter, mother and daughter, and mother and son.
Collapse