A new study from the University of British Columbia explains the reason why people are attracted toward something that is forbidden.

If Adam and Eve had more people around them, Eve probably wouldn't have eaten the forbidden fruit, says a new study. It suggests that forbidden pleasures are easier to resist when they are forbidden to a greater number of individuals. Grace Truong, lead author of the study and a graduate student in UBC's Department of Psychology, says that research shows that when certain things are forbidden to an individual, the brain tends to give more attention to it.

However, the study shows a way to reduce that obsession. When on a diet, delicious foods and chocolates should be avoided but people are more tempted towards them. But when a similar diet is given to group of people and everyone in the group is forbidden, the attraction toward that object significantly drops. Hence, the study suggests that the obsession is not stronger when a group of people are forbidden.

Truong and her team conducted experiments on a group of participants by showing them different pictures. Each object in the picture shown to an individual was described as either theirs, someone else's, forbidden only them or forbidden to the whole group.

Researchers used brain imaging technology to find the different levels of attraction toward different objects in the picture.

"Since the days of Eve and the apple, scholars have been interested in our attraction to items we should avoid," UBC Psychology Prof. Todd Handy, a co-author of the study, said in a press release. "Today, it is things like jumbo soft drinks, fatty foods and illicit substances. These new findings help to explain how our brain processes forbidden objects and suggests that, for resisting temptation, there's strength in numbers. It's harder to go it alone."

The results of the study proved that individuals showed similar attraction to the forbidden objects in the picture and those that were described as their own. Less focus was toward objects forbidden to the group and those described as someone else's belongings.

The study will appear in the upcoming edition of Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience.