Abstract
Hypersexual disorder (HD) comes with clinically significant personal distress for patients and further social and medical morbidity. Yet, there are heterogeneous attempts concerning etiology, phenomenology and diagnostic classification of HD. Several studies have outlined similarities between HD and addictive behaviors and substance dependencies. Attentional biases and implicit cognitions, in particular approach and avoidance tendencies, have been related to craving responses in substance dependent individuals. The rationale is that addiction-congruent images should facilitate pull (i.e., approach) responses in relation to neutral stimuli. Investigating these cognitive mechanisms in HD could help understanding the diagnosis in terms of a behavioral addiction, thus giving further options to address in therapy. A sample of 46 HD patients and 37 healthy age- and intelligence-matched healthy control (HC) participants completed the Approach Avoidance Task (AAT; Rinck and Becker, 2007) modified with pornographic pictures. During the AAT participants either had to push pornographic stimuli away or pull them toward themselves with a joystick. Additionally, tendencies towards cybersex addiction were assessed.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
