Brother and sister incest is surprisingly common : 2014 study of 8,000 college students from India and the USA

The two countries surveyed had very high rates of sibling incest, and they were also higher than what was reported in studies from other countries. The study's author speculated that these countries are more conservative and thus their incest was higher.<br><br>**Survey of 4,000 Indian college students (3,400 men; 600 women)**: 34% of men and 29% of women reported engaging in incest<br><br>**Survey of 4,000 American college students (2,000 men; 2,000 women)**: 18.5% of men and 24.5% of women reported engaging in incest<br><br>From the study:<br><br>> It is often thought that human incest occurs in relatively primitive societies, or in backward, isolated societies, yet this certainly does not appear to be the case. There is evidence to prove that incest is widespread in nearly all cultures.” (Boyer, 1983, p. 238). India falls under the category of a collectivistic society, where boundaries of personal space are different than in Western countries. Indian men do not generally engage in touching and hugging, and often even talking to women. <br><br>Maybe this loss of personal space and privacy at home could be another reason for the higher percentage of sexual incest in the Indian population. The occurrence of incest is also likely to be more common in the conservative societies than in permissive liberal societies. In most situations, people are often prevented from discussing or even acknowledging incestuous feelings because of social taboos and widespread disapproval of this behavior. <br><br>Even so, some studies in other cultures support the high frequency of incestuous behaviour reported in this study. Some studies report that it is an especially common phenomenon, often unnoticed or ignored in American society (Koller, 1986). In the United States, the most common incestuous behaviour occurs in the mother/daughter, father/daughter, and brother/sister dyads. The brother/ sister form of incest occurs most frequently, followed by father/daughter and mother/daughter incest.