18. Sexual Self-Schemas and Neural Processing of Sexual Information in Women

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie M. Nanos
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Sexual Response ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Sexual Information ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Empirically Supported ◽  
Will Self

Previous research suggests that humans respond differently to reproductively-relevant information in the environment, including heightened neural responses to sexual versus non-sexual cues. Limited research, however, has examined individual variation in the early neural processing of sexual information. Sexual self-schemas, or one’s views of themselves as a sexual person, provide a stable cognitive framework for processing sexually-relevant information, and may relate to women’s sexual responses. This study seeks to examine how women’s sexual self-schemas relate to the early neural processing of sexual information and their subsequent subjective sexual arousal. Twenty women are being recruited from the Queen’s psychology subject pool and data collection is currently underway. I am assessing women’s neural responses to sexual and non-sexual images (i.e., erect penises versus elbows) using electroencephalography (EEG), and women are reporting their feelings of arousal to the sexual images. Women are also completing a measure of sexual self-schemas. I predict that women who have more positive sexual self-schema scores will have a stronger neural response to sexual stimuli than women with more negative schema scores. In addition, I predict that women with more positive schema scores will self-report higher sexual arousal than women with more negative scores. The findings of this study will improve our understanding of the role of sexual self-schemas and early neural processing in women’s sexual response, thus lending to the development of a comprehensive, empirically-supported model of sexual response that accounts for within-gender variability. 

Intrasexual Competition and Sexual Response in Androphilic Women

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Cornett
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Intrasexual Competition ◽  
Sexual Response ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Information Processing Model ◽  
Sexual Stimuli

Androphilic (sexually attracted to men) women demonstrate genital and self-reported arousal to sexual stimuli of both their preferred and non-preferred genders - a “gender-nonspecific” sexual response (e.g., Chivers et al, 2007). One hypothesis for female non-specific arousal patterns is intrasexual competition (the rivalry among the same sex for mates). Previously intrasexual competition has been operationalized as the level of jealousy a woman feels towards another woman. Intrasexual competition has been found to increase attentional adhesion to same sex stimuli (Maner, Gilliot & Roudy, 2007) The Information Processing Model (IPM; Janssen et al, 2000) posits that visual attention to sexual cues may result in a sexual response. Longer viewing times to same sex stimuli motivated by intrasexual competition (Maner et al., 2007) could therefore lead to an increase in self-reported arousal to non-preferred stimuli. This study explores the relationship between traits associated with intrasexual competition and sexual responding (visual attention and self-reported sexual arousal). Androphilic women are exposed to sexual stimuli varying by gender (preferred, non-preferred) and physical attractiveness level (attractive, unattractive). Visual attention is measured using an eye tracker and sexual arousal is assessed by participant self-report.  Intrasexual competition is operationalized through measures of self-reported jealousy, anger, indirect aggression, and body image. I predict the participants will exhibit greater intrasexual competition after viewing images of attractive women compared to images of unattractive women and men. I also explore visual attention as a mediator between intrasexual competition and self-reported sexual arousal.  Data collection for this project is currently underway. Chivers, M. L., Seto, M. C., & Blanchard, R. (2007). Gender and sexual orientation differences in sexual response to sexual activities versus gender of actors in sexual films. Journal of personality and social psychology, 93(6), 1108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.93.6.1108 Janssen, E., Everaerd, W., Spiering, M., & Janssen, J. (2000). Automatic processes and the appraisal of sexual stimuli: Toward an information processing model of sexual arousal. Journal of Sex Research, 37(1), 8–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490009552016 Maner, J. K., Gailliot, M. T., Rouby, A., & Miller, S. (2007). Can’t Take My Eyes Off You: Attentional Adhesion to Mates and Rivals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(3), 389–401. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.93.3.389

scholarly journals Gender Differences in Implicit Processing of Sexual Stimuli

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke Dewitte
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Sexual Response ◽  
Implicit Processing ◽  
Personality Psychology ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Avoidance Motivation ◽  
Sexual Information ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Elaborative Processing ◽  
Sexually Explicit

The present studies investigated whether men and women differ in cognitive–motivational processing of sexual stimuli in order to better understand the commonly observed gender differences in sexual outcome variables. Because these processes often operate without conscious control, we focused specifically on automatic stimulus processing. Using a series of implicit tasks, we measured inhibition, attentional orientation, appraisal and approach–avoidance motivation regarding sexually explicit stimuli in male and female students. Results showed that men were more strongly motivated to approach sexual stimuli than women and were better able to inhibit sexual information as to prevent activation of the sexual response. With regard to attentional orientation, men were more easily drawn by sexual cues than women, yet only when the cues were presented long enough to allow more elaborative processing. No gender differences were found in the implicit evaluation of sexual information, although men and women did differ at the level of self–reported sexual evaluations. Our results indicate the importance of incorporating information–processing mechanisms and emotion regulation strategies into the conceptualization of the sexual response and promote further research on the specificity, robustness, predictive validity and malleability of the cognitive–motivational processes underlying sexual arousal. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology

Gender-specific genital and subjective sexual arousal to prepotent sexual stimuli in androphilic men and gynephilic women

2021 ◽  
pp. e20210004
Author(s):  
Nina Micanovic ◽  
Amanda D. Timmers ◽  
Meredith L. Chivers
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Specific Pattern ◽  
Sexual Response ◽  
Sex Characteristics ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Specific Response ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Subjective Sexual Arousal ◽  
Gender Specific

Marked differences have been found in men’s and women’s sexual response patterns, contingent upon their sexual orientation; androphilic (attracted to men) and gynephilic (attracted to women) men demonstrate greatest genital and self-reported arousal to their preferred stimulus type (a “gender-specific” response), whereas androphilic women do not, and findings for gynephilic women have been mixed. While there have been many investigations into gynephilic men’s and androphilic women’s (i.e., heterosexual men/women) sexual response, there has been less investigation into the specificity of sexual response of androphilic men and gynephilic women. Given the complex nature of sexual stimuli that are used in sexual response research, it is often unclear to what extent contextual cues (e.g., cues other than the sexual actor’s primary and secondary sex characteristics, such as physical attractiveness, sexual activity, etc.) influence participants’ sexual response patterns. As such, the current study examined genital, discrete self-reported, and continuous self-reported responses of androphilic men ( n = 22) and gynephilic women ( n = 10) to prepotent sexual features (stimuli thought to elicit automatic sexual arousal: erect penises and exposed vulvas), non-prepotent sexual features (flaccid penises and pubic triangles) and neutral stimuli (clothed men and women). Both samples exhibited a gender-specific pattern of genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported sexual arousal. Similarly, all measures of sexual arousal were generally found to be greatest to “prepotent” sexual cues. Implications for understanding gender specificity of sexual response are discussed.

scholarly journals Visual Attention and Sexual Function in Women

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Milani ◽  
Samantha J. Dawson ◽  
Julia Velten
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Dysfunction ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Sexual Function ◽  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Sexual Response ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Sexual Stimuli

Abstract Purpose of Review Theoretical models situate attention as integral to the onset and regulation of sexual response and propose that problems with sexual response and subsequent sexual dysfunction result from insufficient attentional processing of sexual stimuli. The goal of this paper is to review literature examining the link between attentional processing of sexual stimuli and sexual function in women. Specifically, we sought to understand whether women with and without sexual dysfunction differ in their visual attention to sexual stimuli and examined the link with sexual response, which would support attention as a mechanism underlying sexual dysfunction. Recent Findings Across women with and without sexual concerns, sexual stimuli are preferentially attended to relative to nonsexual stimuli, suggesting that sexual stimuli are more salient than nonsexual stimuli. Differences between women with and without sexual dysfunction emerge when examining visual attention toward the most salient features of sexual stimuli (e.g., genital regions depicting sexual activity). Consistent with theoretical models, visual attention and sexual response are related, such that increasing attention to sexual cues facilitates sexual arousal, whereas reduced attention to sexual stimuli appears to suppress sexual arousal, which may contribute to sexual difficulties in women. Summary Taken together, the research supports the role of visual attention in sexual response and sexual function. These findings provide empirical support for interventions that target attentional processing of sexual stimuli. Future research is required to further delineate the specific attentional mechanisms involved in sexual response and investigate whether these are modifiable. This knowledge may be beneficial for developing novel psychological interventions targeting attentional processes in the treatment of sexual dysfunctions.

At the Second Glance: Stability of Neural Responses Toward Visual Sexual Stimuli

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2720-2737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sina Wehrum‐Osinsky ◽  
Tim Klucken ◽  
Sabine Kagerer ◽  
Bertram Walter ◽  
Andrea Hermann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Responses ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli

Orgasm consistency and its relationship to women’s self-reported and genital sexual response

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larah Maunder ◽  
Nina Micanovic ◽  
Jackie S. Huberman ◽  
Meredith L. Chivers
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Sexual Motivation ◽  
Incentive Motivation ◽  
Sexual Response ◽  
Sexual History ◽  
Genital Arousal ◽  
Incentive Value ◽  
Motivation Model ◽  
Age Range

According to the Incentive Motivation Model (IMM) of sexual response, the rewarding and pleasurable aspects of a sexual act strengthen its incentive value and capacity to trigger sexual motivation. One such sexual reward is orgasm consistency, the percentage of time that orgasm is experienced during a sex act. Orgasm consistency may serve to influence the incentive value of a sexual behaviour. We tested this tenet of the IMM by examining whether orgasm consistency predicted women’s sexual responses to films depicting various sex acts. Data were collected from four separate studies examining women’s genital and subjective sexual response. Participants ( N = 144, age range = 18–65) were presented with neutral and erotic film stimuli while their genital arousal was assessed using vaginal photoplethysmography or thermography. Participants reported their sexual arousal level before, during, and after each stimulus presentation, and completed questionnaires assessing sexual history and experiences, sexual interests, and sexual functioning. Orgasm consistency during penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI) significantly predicted genital arousal to films depicting PVI, but similar relationships were not observed between genital or self-reported arousal and orgasm consistency during receptive oral sex and masturbation. Findings suggest that increasing orgasm consistency to a sex act may increase its incentive value, thereby triggering greater genital response to depictions of that act. Lack of consistent orgasm or generally pleasurable and rewarding sex may limit the capacity of sex acts to trigger sexual motivation in future sexual encounters, thus contributing to low sexual arousal and desire in women.

scholarly journals Rapid neural representations of personally relevant faces

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mareike Bayer ◽  
Oksana Berhe ◽  
Isabel Dziobek ◽  
Tom Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Neural Circuitry ◽  
Romantic Partners ◽  
Personal Relevance ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Processing Network

AbstractThe faces of those most personally relevant to us are our primary source of social information, making their timely perception a priority. Recent research indicates that gender, age and identity of faces can be decoded from EEG/MEG data within 100ms. Yet the time course and neural circuitry involved in representing the personal relevance of faces remain unknown. We applied simultaneous EEG-fMRI to examine neural responses to emotional faces of female participants’ romantic partners, friends, and a stranger. Combining EEG and fMRI in cross-modal representational similarity analyses, we provide evidence that representations of personal relevance start prior to structural encoding at 100ms in visual cortex, but also in prefrontal and midline regions involved in value representation, and monitoring and recall of self-relevant information. Representations related to romantic love emerged after 300ms. Our results add to an emerging body of research that suggests that models of face perception need to be updated to account for rapid detection of personal relevance in cortical circuitry beyond the core face processing network.

scholarly journals Subjective social status and neural processing of race in Mexican American adolescents

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 1837-1848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keely A. Muscatell ◽  
Ethan McCormick ◽  
Eva H. Telzer
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
Subjective Social Status ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Mexican American Adolescents

AbstractAdolescence is a sensitive period for sociocultural development in which facets of social identity, including social status and race, become especially salient. Despite the heightened importance of both social status and race during this developmental period, no known work has examined how individual differences in social status influence perceptions of race in adolescents. Thus, in the present study, we investigated how both subjective social status and objective socioeconomic status (SES) influence neural responses to race. Twenty-three Mexican American adolescents (15 females; mean age = 17.22 years) were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they viewed Black and White faces in a standard labeling task. Adolescents rated their subjective social status in US society, while their parents responded to questions about their educational background, occupation, and economic strain (objective SES). Results demonstrated a negative association between subjective social status and neural responses in the amygdala, fusiform face area, and medial prefrontal cortex when adolescents viewed Black (relative to White) faces. In other words, adolescents with lower subjective social status showed greater activity in neural regions involved in processing salience, perceptual expertise, and thinking about the minds of others when they viewed images of Black faces, suggesting enhanced salience of race for these youth. There was no relationship between objective SES and neural responses to the faces. Moreover, instructing participants to focus on the gender or emotion expression on the face attenuated the relationship between subjective social status and neural processing of race. Together, these results demonstrate that subjective social status shapes the way the brain responds to race, which may have implications for psychopathology.

Ready or Not: Exploring Sexual Arousal with Women who Report Sexual Arousal Difficulties

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Zadorozny
Keyword(s):  
Blood Flow ◽  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Doppler Imaging ◽  
Erotic Stimuli ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
Subjective Sexual Arousal ◽  
First Time ◽  
Subjective Arousal ◽  
Report Measure

The purpose of this study is to examine possible differences in genital and subjective components of sexual arousal between women with and without sexual arousal/desire difficulties (SADD). Previous research has focused on physiological differences with women who have SADD, in particular, genital response to erotic stimuli. The pattern of results in the literature indicates that women with SADD exhibit similar genital responses to controls (Meston, Rellini, & McCall, 2010), yet women with SADD typically report a decrease in intensity of genital sensation in sexual situations (Laan, van Driel, & van Lunsen, 2008; Giraldi, Rellini, Pfaus, & Laan, 2013), calling into question the method of measurement employed to assess genitalresponse. In the current study, genital and subjective arousal, along with genital-subjective agreement (i.e., sexual concordance), will be investigated to determine if there is a difference between women with SADD and controls. Participants will include 30 self-identified heterosexual women who will complete a validated self-report measure of sexual function and a session in which they rate their subjective sexual arousal while their genital blood flow is measured in response to various films. Laser Doppler Imaging will be used to measure genital blood flow for the first time in this population. This study could lead to a better understanding of sexual arousal in women with SADD, which will assist with diagnosis, as well as identify areas to focus on when trying to develop treatments for sexual dysfunction.

Transdiagnostic Assessment and Case Formulation

2017 ◽  
pp. 17-37
Author(s):  
Hannah Boettcher ◽  
Laren R. Conklin
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Disorders ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Emotional Disorder ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Case Formulation ◽  
Case Conceptualization ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Transdiagnostic Treatment ◽  
Unified Protocol ◽  
Dimensional Assessment

This chapter describes a transdiagnostic, emotion-focused approach to case formulation that facilitates individualized application of the Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders (UP). We begin by highlighting the advantages of dimensional assessment and classification in the domain of emotional disorders. Next, we describe the elements of case conceptualization essential to the UP, including assessment of strong uncomfortable emotions, aversive reactions to emotional experiences, and efforts to escape or avoid these experiences. We provide examples of such processes, suggestions for how to elicit relevant information from patients, and a worksheet for conducting case formulation within the UP framework. Finally, we preview a recently developed self-report instrument that uses dimensional assessment to yield a transdiagnostic profile of emotional disorder features, which may further facilitate treatment planning.

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