Psychology Of Human Sexuality Research Articles

Book Review: The Psychology of Human Sexuality, 2nd ed., by Justin J. Lehmiller

Sex education is important both to individuals and to overall public health outcomes. In the United States, sex education curriculum is not guided by any federal standards, meaning materials and approaches vary widely. Drawing inspiration and evidence from countries with successful sexuality education standards, we know that comprehensive, evidence-based methods are the most effective for improving health outcomes across myriad domains. Materials that are guided by this standard of empirical basis should be identified and used in conjunction with other tools for providing responsible and effective sex education. This is a review of one such undergraduate textbook: \textit{The Psychology of Human Sexuality} (Lehmiller, 2018). Lehmiller’s (2018) textbook is not only guided by a rigorous commitment to empirical basis and medical accuracy, but features an understanding of the roles of psychological, social, and cultural issues in sexual development and behavior that other sexuality textbooks lack. Additionally, the intentional tone of sex-positivity and attempts at inclusivity present in this textbook set it apart from its counterparts. Benefits and shortcomings to this approach are discussed.

045 Sexual Disgust and Sexual Satisfaction

From an evolutionary perspective, sexual disgust is an emotion that is thought to aid in the evaluation of potential sexual partners and situations (Tybur et al., 2009). This emotion has been shown to consist of six unique dimensions that have important implications for human sexual psychology (Crosby et al., under review). One dimension, which represents disgust towards sexual activities involving individuals outside of a monogamous relationship (e.g., watching pornography and threesomes) may be particularly relevant for understanding sexual satisfaction within committed, romantic relationships. High levels of sexual disgust towards these behaviors in the context of a romantic relationship may signal commitment to relationship partners, which may influence sexual satisfaction within romantic relationships.

Evolutionary approaches: Integrating pornography preferences, short-term mating, and infidelity

There are a number of questions concerning human sexual psychology where pornography consumption may be particularly informative, yet evolutionary psychologists have been slow to incorporate it into research designs. This study examines the relationships between pornography preferences, individual's sex, proxies for short-term mating strategies (e.g., life history strategy, sociosexuality), and infidelity. For example, we predict that men, more than women, will be interested in group sex (i.e., threesomes and gangbang) scenarios in pornography as a result of selective pressures for sperm competition. Further, specific activities and sexual situations in pornography are likely to be differentially appealing based on the sexual strategies pursued by consumers. Thus, women who have higher, versus lower, intentions of committing infidelity will be more interested in activities like group sex, given the latter involves no commitment. Results suggest that men exhibit more interest in group sex scenarios than women, and intentions to commit infidelity are also associated with greater interest in group sex scenarios. Collectively, our findings demonstrate the usefulness of incorporating consumption of pornography measures in evolutionary social psychological research.

Effectiveness of undergraduate human sexuality courses in enhancing women’s sexual functioning

ABSTRACTWhen young adult women and men engage in sexual encounters, the former have significantly fewer orgasms than the latter. This gendered orgasm disparity, often referred to as an orgasm gap, is theorised to be due to a multitude of societal issues. The purpose of this study was to assess whether a Psychology of Human Sexuality university course, which covered the orgasm gap and the cultural factors responsible for it, would be effective at enhancing women’s sexual pleasure and functioning. Specifically, this study compared women university students enrolled in this course to those in a Psychology of Personality course (i.e., no sexual content) and a Human Sexuality and Culture class (i.e., sexual content but not specifically covering the orgasm gap). Participants (N = 271 women) answered pre-test and post-test questions regarding their sexual practices, attitudes towards women’s genitals, cognitive distraction during sexual activity, entitlement to sexual pleasure, orgasm quality, and partner communication during sexual activity. Students in the Psychology of Human Sexuality improved on virtually all the measures of sexual functioning from pre-test to post-test. Those enrolled in the other courses evidenced minimal or no changes. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Mate Preferences and Their Behavioral Manifestations.

Evolved mate preferences comprise a central causal process in Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Their powerful influences have been documented in all sexually reproducing species, including in sexual strategies in humans. This article reviews the science of human mate preferences and their myriad behavioral manifestations. We discuss sex differences and sex similarities in human sexual psychology, which vary according to short-term and long-term mating contexts. We review context-specific shifts in mating strategy depending on individual, social, and ecological qualities such as mate value, life history strategy, sex ratio, gender economic inequality, and cultural norms. We review the empirical evidence for the impact of mate preferences on actual mating decisions. Mate preferences also dramatically influence tactics of mate attraction, tactics of mate retention, patterns of deception, causes of sexual regret, attraction to cues to sexual exploitability, attraction to cues to fertility, attraction to cues to resources and protection, derogation of competitors, causes of breakups, and patterns of remarriage. We conclude by articulating unresolved issues and offer a future agenda for the science of human mating, including how humans invent novel cultural technologies to better implement ancient sexual strategies and how cultural evolution may be dramatically influencing our evolved mating psychology.

Nothing Is Purely Sexual Behavior, Except This Book

A review of the book “Evolutionary perspectives on human sexual psychology and behavior”, edited by Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford and Todd K. Shackelford (2014).

"Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Sexual Psychology and Behavior": New Edited Volume by Weekes-Shackelford and Shackelford

Psychological Thought, 2014, Vol. 7(2), 187–188, doi:10.5964/psyct.v7i2.122 Published (VoR): 2014-10-22. *Corresponding author at: SWU “Neofit Rilski” 66, Ivan Mihailov Street, 2700 Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. E-mail: avka@abv.bg This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The Ape That Kicked the Hornet's Nest: Response to Commentaries on “The Ape That Thought It Was a Peacock”

We respond to the commentaries on our target article, “The Ape That Thought It Was a Peacock.” We start with specific issues raised by the article. These relate to the magnitude of human sex differences; the evolution and relative importance of pair bonding, paternal care, and polygyny in our species; and the distinction between the males-compete/females-choose (MCFC) model of human sexual psychology and the mutual mate choice (MMC) model. We then evaluate two competing theories of human sex differences and similarities: Social Role Theory and Attachment Fertility Theory. We conclude with some thoughts about how to present and teach evolutionary psychological research and theories without conveying an exaggerated impression of the scale of human sex differences.

Visual cues to female physical attractiveness.

Evolutionary psychology suggests that a woman's sexual attractiveness is based on cues of health and reproductive potential. In recent years, research has focused on the ratio of the width of the waist to the width of the hips (the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). A low WHR (i.e. a curvaceous body) is believed to correspond to the optimal fat distribution for high fertility, and so this shape should be highly attractive. In this paper we present evidence that weight scaled for height (the body mass index (BMI)) is the primary determinant of sexual attractiveness rather than WHR. BMI is also strongly linked to health and reproductive potential. Furthermore, we show how covariation of apparent BMI and WHR in previous studies led to the overestimation of the importance of WHR in the perception of female attractiveness. Finally, we show how visual cues, such as the perimeter-area ratio (PAR), can provide an accurate and reliable index of an individual's BMI and could be used by an observer to differentiate between potential partners.

Sexual strategies theory: Historical origins and current status

In sexually reproducing organisms, no domain is more closely linked with the engine of the evolutionary process than sexuality. Men and women over human evolutionary history have confronted different adaptive problems in the sexual domain. Sexual Strategies Theory offers an account of these adaptive problems and presents a view of human sexual psychology as a rich repertoire of mechanisms that have evolved as adaptive solutions. A host of specific predictions about human sexuality follows from this analysis, including an account of sex differences in the desire for sexual variety, the qualities preferred in short‐term and long‐term mates, context‐dependent shifts in mate preferences, the nature of sexual jealousy, the tactics that are effective for attracting and retaining a mate, and the causes of sexual conflict between men and women. After reviewing the theory's historical origins, I summarize a portion of the extensive empirical research designed to test its tenets. An evaluation of the theory notes its strengths as well as its weaknesses, with a special focus on the issues of prediction and falsification. It ends with a challenge for other theories of human sexuality to reach an equivalent level of specific predictions, a comparable empirical foundation, an equally parsimonious account of sex differences, a compelling ultimate account of causal origins, and a comparable level of multi‐level conceptual integration.

Gender discrimination in biological motion displays based on dynamic cues

Studies of human locomotion have found that male and female walkers differ in terms of lateral body sway, with males tending to swing their shoulders from side to side more than their hips, and females tending to swing their hips more than their shoulders. Experiments reported here demonstrate that naive viewers can identify the gender of the figure in a biological motion display very reliably when the display contains gender-specific lateral body sway. Sensitivity to gender is high even for displays containing only a fraction of a step cycle. This dynamic cue dominates structural cues based on torso shape (`centre-of-moment9) when the cues are set in opposition. It is mediated by gender-specific differences in the velocity of shoulder and hip dots, not by positional differences in shoulder and hip dots during the step cycle.

How Does the Study of a Course in “The Psychology of Human Sexuality” Affect One’s Values?

SynopsisThe study reports the attitudes of a cohort of Australian tertiary students who completed one semester tertiary level course in ’The Psychology of Human Sexuality’ at the University of South Australia. Attitudes towards a variety of sexual issues changed in a more liberal’ direction. Student sexual ego-strength ratings were enhanced following the course. The most dramatic changes occurred in attitudes towards homosexuality. It seems likely that these changes were due to the emotional impact of hearing the personal life stories of visiting guest speakers. The implications of these findings for teaching practices are discussed.

The evolutionary psychology of sexual harassment in organizations

We explore the value of theory developed in the field of evolutionary psychology for predicting and explaining patterns of sociosexual interaction between men and women in the workplace. In particular, we focus on assessing the value of this theoretical framework for increasing our understanding of the behavioral phenomenon of sexual harassment in organizations. To do this, we develop hypotheses based on a consideration of the evolved psychological mechanisms which have been proposed by evolutionary psychologists to underly human sexual behavior. We then review the existing literature on sociosexual behavior and sexual harassment within the workplace as a preliminary test of predictions concerning the expected profile, reaction, and motivation of recipients and initiators of sexual advances in the workplace. We also analyze the expected effect of novel aspects of the organizational environment on overt sexual behavior. This theory predicts, for example, that most sexual harassment will be initiated by men, and that young, single women will be the most frequent victims. This theory also predicts that women will generally experience a more negative reaction than men to sexual advances in the workplace, but that this emotional response will be mediated by other factors such as the profile of the initiator. The available data generally confirm these and other related predictions. Moreover, these results are quite consistent with other studies of the evolutionary psychology of human sexuality. We discuss the implications for theory in this area, and suggest some potentially fruitful avenues for original empirical research on human sexual behavior, inside or outside the workplace.

American Psychology and the Study of Human Sexuality

The history of American psychology and the study of human sexuality is traced from its emergence out of the science of sexology. The pioneering contributions of Hall, Watson, and Terman are reviewed, and the impact of the Kinsey studies is considered. The modern period of research expansion and theoretical development is discussed in the context of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Approaches to the psychology of human sexuality are viewed as reflecting a historical shift from an essentialist to a constructionist model.

Introduction of an Undergraduate Course in the Psychology of Human Sexuality

Despite initial objections, this course was introduced and experimentally demonstrated to have produced an increase in knowledge.

Psychology of Human Sexuality. By Zella Luria and Mitchell D. Rose. Chichester: John Wiley. 1979. Pp 546. £9.50.

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Review of Psychology of human sexuality.

Review of Psychology of human sexuality.

Contemporary sex education: attitudes and implications for childrearing.

Journal of School HealthVolume 43, Issue 4 p. 241-246 CONTEMPORARY SEX EDUCATION: ATTITUDES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CHILDREARING* Jane Divita Woody Ph.D., Jane Divita Woody Ph.D. Psychobehavioral Institute for Human Resources, Grandville, MichiganSearch for more papers by this author Jane Divita Woody Ph.D., Jane Divita Woody Ph.D. Psychobehavioral Institute for Human Resources, Grandville, MichiganSearch for more papers by this author First published: April 1973 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1561.1973.tb01879.xCitations: 8 * Appreciation is expressed to Robert H. Woody, Ph.D., for his help in the preparation of this article; the contents, to a large extent, evolved from our co-teaching of the course “Psychology of Human Sexuality,” co-leading “Human Sexuality Seminars,” and co-counseling for sexual problems at Grand Valley State College. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume43, Issue4April 1973Pages 241-246 RelatedInformation