scholarly journals Learned but Not Chosen: A Reward Competition Feedback Model for the Origins of Sexual Preferences and Orientations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Safron ◽  
Victoria Klimaj
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Sexual Preferences ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Feedback Model ◽  
Sexual Responses ◽  
Nature And Nurture ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Subjective Arousal

Is sexual orientation an evolutionary adaptation or social construct? With respect to sexual preferences, to what extent are we “born that way” and to what extent does learning matter? This chapter discusses how nature and nurture may interact to shape sexual motivation by reviewing existing literature on sexual preferences and orientations, as well as by considering sex/gender differences in erotic plasticity, sexual fluidity, and the specificity of sexual arousal. We describe how these phenomena might be accounted for by processes in which mind body feedback loops amplify some sexual responses over others on multiple levels, which we refer to as the Reward Competition Feedback (RCF) model. With respect to sex/gender differences, we describe how these positive feedback processes might be amplified in men compared with women, potentially substantially driven by differences in the constraints and affordances of female and male anatomy. More specifically, we argue that the well-known female-male difference in the concordance of genital and subjective arousal may contribute to well-known differences in sexual specificity and plasticity/fluidity. We further provide convergent support for RCF by reviewing preexisting theories of sexual learning. Finally, we consider some of the ethical implications of models in which sexual orientation might be shaped by experiences over the course of development.

Evidence of sexual orientation and gender differences in mental health outcomes for violent crime victims

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Cramer ◽  
Martha Shumway ◽  
Amanda M. Amacker ◽  
Dale E. McNiel ◽  
Sarah Holley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Gender Differences ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
Crime Victims ◽  
Mental Health Outcomes ◽  
And Gender

scholarly journals Automaticity of Early Sexual Attention: An Event-Related Potential Study

Sexual Abuse ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 107906322110242
Author(s):  
Anastasios Ziogas ◽  
Benedikt Habermeyer ◽  
Wolfram Kawohl ◽  
Elmar Habermeyer ◽  
Andreas Mokros
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Sexual Interest ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Forensic Assessment ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Sexual Preferences ◽  
Motor Responses ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Promising Line

A promising line of research on forensic assessment of paraphilic sexual interest focuses on behavioral measures of visual attention using sexual stimuli as distractors. The present study combined event-related potentials (ERPs) with behavioral measures to investigate whether detection of a hidden sexual preference can be improved with ERPs. Normal variants of sexual orientation were used for a proof-of-concept investigation. Accordingly, 40 heterosexual and 40 gay men participated in the study. Within each group, half of the participants were instructed to hide their sexual orientation. The results showed that a match between sexual orientation and stimulus delays responses and influences ERP before motor responses. Late ERP components showed higher potential in differentiating hidden sexual preferences than motor responses, thereby showing how ERPs can be used in combination with reaction time measures to potentially facilitate the detection of hidden sexual preferences.

Task Complexity and Subjective Arousal

1986 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-71
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Pond ◽  
Laurie A. Kimball
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Perceptual Information ◽  
Check List ◽  
Adjective Check List ◽  
Subjective Arousal ◽  
Medium Group

Responses on the Activation–Deactivation Adjective Check List were recorded for forty–eight subjects who were performing a visual perceptual information processing task at one of three levels of task difficulty. In general, significant task performance differences in the expected direction were recorded. Two of the activation measures were found to differentiate between low and high task difficulty groups, while the scores for the medium group fell between these two-but did not significantly differ from either. Gender differences for both performance and activation measures were largely not significant.

scholarly journals Gay and Lesbian Individuals’ Attitudes Toward the Death Penalty

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith G. F. Worthen ◽  
Susan F. Sharp ◽  
Forrest R. Rodgers
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Empathic Concern ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
And Gender

Research examining attitudes toward the death penalty has led to a variety of theoretical and practical implications that continue to inform both research and policy. While many studies have examined how race, class, and gender are related to attitudes toward the death penalty, there is a complete lack of literature regarding sexual orientation and attitudes toward the death penalty. This is quite surprising since demographic research suggests that gay and lesbian individuals (compared to heterosexual individuals) have significantly higher levels of education and may be much more likely to align with liberal politics (two things that have been found to be correlated with a lack of support for the death penalty). Furthermore, studies suggest that gender differences in attitudes toward capital punishment can be related to the fact that women are socialized to be more empathic than men; however, it is unclear how these gender differences in empathic concern may be related to death penalty attitudes among gay and lesbian individuals. In this exploratory analysis using the General Social Survey (years 2002 and 2004), the authors investigate gay and lesbian individuals’ attitudes toward the use of the death penalty. Preliminary findings indicate that similar to heterosexuals, the majority of gay and lesbian individuals support the death penalty; however, being a gay man exerts a significant negative effect on death penalty support. Furthermore, both empathic concern and political beliefs entirely mediate the effects of gender and sexual orientation on attitudes toward the death penalty.

scholarly journals Sexual orientation and race mute the prescriptive nature of gender stereotypes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sa-kiera Tiarra Jolynn Hudson ◽  
Asma Ghani
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
White Men ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Total N ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Sexual Orientations

There is substantial research on the nature and impact of gender prescriptive stereotypes. However, there has been relatively little work on whether these stereotypes are equally applicable to men and women of different identities. Across two studies (total N = 1074), we assessed gender prescriptive stereotypes intersectionality in an American context, for men and women of different sexual orientations (Study 1) and races (Study 2). Results show strong evidence of a straight-centric bias, as prescriptive stereotypes of men and women most closely aligned with those of straight men and women, but limited evidence for a White-centric bias. Furthermore, observed gender differences in prescriptive stereotypes were smaller or non-existent for sexual and ethnic minority targets compared to straight and White targets, suggesting that theories around the dyadic nature of gender stereotypes between men and women might be restricted to straight and White men and women.

scholarly journals Pensamiento crítico versus razón arrogante

2005 ◽  
pp. 11-27
Author(s):  
Carlos Pereda
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
The One ◽  
The Third Person

In this article, several levels in which can be proposed/presented the old dilemma of liberty and determinism are discussed and which is the task of critical thought or, particularly, of this critical thought that is philosophy. On the one hand, this dilemma is confronted in its metaphysical side. On the other, its epistemological and ethical implications are considered. Along this multiple levels I particularly consider the crash between the point of view of the first person and the third person.

scholarly journals Toward Learning Trustworthily from Data Combining Privacy, Fairness, and Explainability: An Application to Face Recognition

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 1047
Author(s):  
Danilo Franco ◽  
Luca Oneto ◽  
Nicolò Navarin ◽  
Davide Anguita
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Face Recognition ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Homomorphic Encryption ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Automated Systems ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Fair Representation

In many decision-making scenarios, ranging from recreational activities to healthcare and policing, the use of artificial intelligence coupled with the ability to learn from historical data is becoming ubiquitous. This widespread adoption of automated systems is accompanied by the increasing concerns regarding their ethical implications. Fundamental rights, such as the ones that require the preservation of privacy, do not discriminate based on sensible attributes (e.g., gender, ethnicity, political/sexual orientation), or require one to provide an explanation for a decision, are daily undermined by the use of increasingly complex and less understandable yet more accurate learning algorithms. For this purpose, in this work, we work toward the development of systems able to ensure trustworthiness by delivering privacy, fairness, and explainability by design. In particular, we show that it is possible to simultaneously learn from data while preserving the privacy of the individuals thanks to the use of Homomorphic Encryption, ensuring fairness by learning a fair representation from the data, and ensuring explainable decisions with local and global explanations without compromising the accuracy of the final models. We test our approach on a widespread but still controversial application, namely face recognition, using the recent FairFace dataset to prove the validity of our approach.

The Nature and Nurture of Ethnic Violence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Lange
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Behavioral Problems ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Genetic Traits ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Biological Explanation ◽  
Nature And Nurture

This chapter examines the nature and nurture of ethnic violence. It begins with a discussion of the behavioral problems of border collies and how they are related to ethnic violence, noting that both are promoted by the combination of group-wide genetic traits and changing social environments. It then considers the biology of ethnic violence by focusing on the propensity to divide people into ingroups and outgroups and how that propensity is linked to human emotions. It also offers a biological explanation for gender differences in ethnic violence and explores the social determinants of ethnic violence such as ethnicity, emotional prejudice, ethnic obligations, mobilizational resources, and political opportunities. Finally, it advances the notion that ethnic violence is caused by modernity.

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