The impact of anxiety on sexual arousal in women

This study examined the impact of state anxiety, trait anxiety, and anxiety sensitivity on physiological and self-report measures of sexual arousal and sexual function in a non-clinical sample of women. Physiological sexual responses to an erotic stimulus were assessed using vaginal photoplethysmography, and subjective reactions were measured using questionnaires. Results suggested a curvilinear relationship between state anxiety and physiological sexual arousal (vaginal pulse amplitude; VPA). Trait anxiety and anxiety sensitivity were correlated with self-reported sexual arousal outside the laboratory. The findings may be interpreted in light of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) influences on sexual arousal and potential cognitive interference mechanisms associated with anxiety.     

A longitudinal study of student-teacher relationship quality, difficult temperament, and risky behavior from childhood to early adolescence

This study examines the mediating role of student-teacher relationship quality (conflict and closeness) in grades 4, 5, and 6 on the relation between background characteristics, difficult temperament at age 4½ and risky behavior in 6th grade. The longitudinal sample of participants (N = 1156) was from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate paths from (a) background characteristics to student-teacher relationship quality and risky behavior, (b) temperament to student-teacher relationship quality and risky behavior, and (c) student-teacher relationship quality to risky behavior. Findings indicate that students' family income, gender, receipt of special services, and more difficult temperament were associated with risky behavior. In addition, student-teacher conflict was a mediator. Students with more difficult temperaments were more likely to report risky behavior and to have conflict in their relationships with teachers. More conflict predicted more risky behavior. Closer student-teacher relationships were associated with less risky behavior. Results suggest negative relationships, specifically student-teacher relationships, may increase the risk that certain adolescents will engage in risky behavior.     

Competition and men’s face preferences

Several studies have examined potentially adaptive shifts and sources of individual differences in women’s face preferences, but relatively few studies have looked for similar findings in men. Evidence suggests that men of higher mate-value may be better placed to compete for relationships with higher-quality women, and that contest competition may influence men’s perceptions of dominance. Here, we looked at the effects of winning/losing in male–male competition on men’s face preferences. Participants were randomly and unknowingly assigned to either win or lose the first-person shooter video game Counter-Strike: Source against an unseen male confederate who could control the outcome through game cheats. We found that, compared to men assigned to the losing condition, men assigned to the winning condition had significantly (p = 0.012) higher preferences for women’s facial femininity. Results suggest that the outcomes of male–male competition may alter men’s mate preferences.     

Digit ratios,but not facial width-to-height ratios,are associated with the priority placed on attending to faces versus bodies

Testosterone has been linked to a sexual preference for bodies rather than faces. Low digit ratio (2D:4D) and high facial width-to-height ratio (WHR) are associated with high prenatal testosterone. We tested whether low 2D:4D and high facial WHR were correlated with a preference for bodies over faces. Our sample consisted of 109 college students (64 males). A two-way analysis of variance demonstrated a significant main effect of digit ratio on the priority placed on paying attention to faces or bodies such that low 2D:4D was linked to a preference for bodies, but the effect of sex was not significant. There were no significant interaction effects. Another two-way analysis of variance revealed no significant effects for facial WHR and attentional priority but significant associations between sex and attentional priority. There were no significant interaction effects. Our findings indicate that individuals with low digit ratios tended to pay more attention to bodies than to faces compared with individuals with higher digit ratios, independently of sex. We also found that males tended to pay more attention to bodies than to faces compared with females, independently of facial WHR.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting after trauma: A study with victims of sexual assault

The Retrieval-Induced Forgetting (RIF) paradigm is used to study how the repeated retrieval practice of particular memories impairs the retrieval of related memory traces. A study is reported where this automatic form of forgetting was investigated in a group of sexual-assault victims and a control group. Using a recognition-cued RIF task, the present study examined RIF with neutral, positive, negative and trauma-specific stimuli. Response time data showed that irrespective of previous trauma exposure, a RIF effect was observed for neutral material, but not for emotional material. No differences in RIF between the trauma group and the control group were found. Inconsistencies with previous literature and the implications for emotional memory are discussed.     

Perversion from the medical-legal perspective

Abstract

The medical-legal view of perversion is strictly concerned with the sexual aspect. This is the result of a controversial historical process full of moralism with respect to sexuality. Psychoanalysis questions this reductionist view, offering itself as instrument of special importance in the characterization of perversion as a complex of structures in human beings.

Alves KC und Prado de Sousa S. Perversion aus der medizin-rechtlichen Perspektive

Die medizin-rechtliche Sicht der Perversion ist strikt mit dem sexuellen Aspekt befaßt. Dies ist das Ergebnis eines kontrovers historischen Prozesses, der ganz mit Moralismus im Hinblick auf Sexualität angefüllt ist. Psychoanalyse stellt diese reduktionistische Sicht in Frage und bietet sich selbst als Instrument von besonderer Bedeutung an, die Perversion als einen Komplex von Strukturen bei Menschen zu charakterisieren.

Alves KC y Prado de Sousa. Perversión desde la perspectiva médico-legal.

El punto de vista médico-legal de la perversión esta estrictamente relacionado con el aspecto sexual. Este es el resultado de un proceso controvertido moral histórico con respecto a la sexualidad. El Psicoanálisis cuestiona este punto de vista reduccionista, ofreciéndose como instrumento de especial importancia en la caracterización de la perversión como una complejidad estructural en los seres humanos.     

“I Don’t feel like melting butter”: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experience of ‘inorgasmia’

Inorgasmia is under-studied in the domain of sexual health psychology. This study explores women's experiences of inorgasmia and the meanings giving to this experience. Interviews with six inorgasmic women were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The analysis showed that the absence of orgasm was experienced as problematic and disturbing. A search for reasons for their condition, and its effects on self-image and self-confidence underpinned the experience of inorgasmia as a problem. The spectrum of meanings surrounding female orgasm demonstrates that, far from being perceived as a merely physical experience, the moment of orgasm takes on relational significance and it has implications for the women's identities. The paper identifies areas for future research and theorising.     

The Fifth R: Jesus as Evolutionary Psychologist

The historical Jesus seems to have known about human nature as described by evolutionary psychology. He addresses the dispositions of human nature that evolutionary psychology says are central: resources, reproduction, relatedness (kinship), and reciprocity. In doing so he answers Aristotle's question, how can human beings flourish? His answer opens a window onto the divine.     

Anxiety's role in aids prevention

Abstract

Anxiety's role in AIDS risk reduction is discussed. We argue that behavioral techniques will be critical tools for alerting people to the threat of AIDS and their own vulnerability. Informational models have not been found to be sufficient for convincing people of the extent of the threat of AIDS to them. We suggest that techniques aimed at raising people's anxiety over their vulnerability will be necessary to raise their motivation to attend to AIDS messages, and we present techniques aimed at increasing anxiety over vulnerability. Following acknowledgment of vulnerability, people will need to adopt or continue safer sex practices that are viewed as undesirable in contrast to unsafe sex practices that are viewed as less costly and less anxiety provoking. Given a clearer practical and theoretical understanding of the anxiety-producing costs of adopting safer sex behaviors, we present methods for reducing this anxiety. We also discuss the necessity for considering ethnic, minority, and other cultural nuances in social and sexual anxiety and how these might be addressed in efforts to increase safer sex practices.     

The Impact of Childhood Physical Abuse and Age of Sexual Initiation on Women's Maladaptive Posttraumatic Cognitions

Child abuse survivors often exhibit long-standing maladaptive beliefs. Sexual risk-taking could contribute to the maintenance of such beliefs by reinforcing cognitions that originally resulted from child abuse. In this study, 64 community women, most with elevated posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, completed measures of childhood abuse, sexual risk-taking, and posttraumatic cognitions. Age of first consensual sexual intercourse mediated the relationship between childhood physical abuse and maladaptive posttraumatic cognitions in adulthood. Thus, age of sexual intercourse initiation might play an important role in women's recovery from childhood physical abuse. Clinicians should consider the possible impact of women's sexual history when challenging their cognitions during trauma-based cognitive behavioral therapy. Further, decreasing risky sexual behavior might partially protect against the negative effects of trauma.