Psychology
Sexual Motivation
Sexual motivation refers to the psychological and physiological factors that drive individuals to engage in sexual behavior. It encompasses a wide range of influences, including biological, social, and cultural factors. Understanding sexual motivation is important in studying human behavior, relationships, and overall well-being.
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10 Key excerpts on "Sexual Motivation"
eBook - PDF- Ethel Person(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Yale University Press(Publisher)
Sexuality must be under-stood not only in terms of its source but also in its relationship to the mainte-nance of identity. 3i 2 ETHEL S. PERSON Theories About the Nature of Sexual Motivation Although the terms sex and sexual appear to be self-explanatory, they are difficult to define because sexual life in humans has so evolved that sex is not identical to the mechanism of reproduction. Sex refers to four separate, but related, physical-psychological sets of data: (i) biological sex, defined by six anatomical and physiological characteristics: chromosomes, gonads, internal genitalia, external genitalia, hormones, and secondary sexual characteristics; (2) gender, composed of core gender identity (the sense I am female or I am male), gender role identity (the sense I am feminine or I am masculine), and gender role behavior; (3) sexual behavior, overt and fantasied, expressed i both choice of object and nature of activity; and (4) reproduction (Money, Hampson, and Hampson, i955b, 1956; J. G. Hampson, 1955; Stoller, 19683; Ovesey and Person, 1973). However, the term sexual, as used in everyday speech, refers almost exclusively to sexual behavior, not only pleasurable geni-tal activity and its associated fantasies but any other sensual experience that has erotic meaning for the individual. Theories about the nature of sexuality are, in general, theories of Sexual Motivation—why people initiate or respond to erotic activity. They usually address the source of sexual desire and arousal. Beach (1956) states the prob-lem: Since no animal mates in order to reproduce, but animals must mate in the service of species survival, we are faced with the problem of identifying the source of reward or positive reinforcement which impels individuals to copu-late (p. 299). Sexual arousal may occur with direct genital stimulation, but arousal often occurs without it.
eBook - PDFMotivation and Emotion
Evolutionary, Physiological, Cognitive, and Social Influences
- David C. Edwards(Author)
- 1998(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
In its absence, sexual arousal and orgasm are pos-sible via direct stimulation, but little un-stimulated interest can exist. A man having regular sexuality with the same woman will have raised testosterone levels and im-proved sperm quality. For women, too, their (smaller quantity of) testosterone builds sex-ual desire. 0 224 g l CHAPTER 7 SENSUAL AROUSAL An old cliche of literature refers to three fun-damental drives of life: hunger, pain, and sex. The message is that they are biological im-peratives—each of unquestionable power. Sex is powerfully attractive and necessary. As some see it, Sex is a misdemeanor: The more you miss it, the meaner you get. At best, that message is trivial, and at worst, it assumes a simple theory of sexual acts. As we found in hunger and pain, we will see compelling physiological elements in sexual acts, but the question is what role those elements have. The cliche suggests that sexual acts are bio-logically driven and hence inevitable. The biological message is inadequate, but there are perhaps things in common among hunger, pain, and sex that don't appear on the surface. In earlier chapters, we saw eating motivated by much more than hunger, and we learned pain has many social controls. So too, motivation for sexual acts is perhaps founded as much on mental states and social conditions as on body need. Aspects of Sexual Motivation may be usefully divided and labeled the sensual, the erotic, and the social (see Table 7.4). Natural physical mechanisms that constitute sexual acts are described as the sensual aspects of sex motivation. Sensual arousal is composed of a general readiness, or libido, and of re-sponses to touch of erogenous body areas. Sensual aspects include the events that di-rectly produce sexual acts and their control-ling physiology. Erotic factors are learned, serving to evoke sexual interest and prepare for sexual acts.
- Lorelle J. Burton, Drew Westen, Robin M. Kowalski(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Motives can be divided into biological and psychosocial needs (such as needs for dominance, power, achievement and relatedness to others), although few motives are strictly biological or learned. Emotion is an evaluative response that typically includes physiological arousal, subjective experience and behavioural or emotional expression. 13.1 Perspectives on motivation LEARNING OUTCOME 13.1 Distinguish among the different theoretical perspectives on motivation. Motivation has two components: what people want to do (the goals they pursue) and how strongly they want to do it. A number of perspectives, presented in their chronological order here, offer insight into both of these components. Psychodynamic perspective The psychodynamic perspective emphasises the biological basis of motivation. Humans are animals, and their motives reflect their animal heritage. According to Freud, humans, like other animals, are motivated by drives, internal tension states that build up until they are satisfied. He proposed two basic drives: sex and aggression. The sexual drive includes desires for love, lust and intimacy, whereas the aggressive drive includes not only blatantly aggressive or sadistic impulses but desires to control or master other people and the environment. These drives may express themselves in subtle ways. Aggression, for example, can underlie sarcastic comments or enjoyment of violent movies. Changing views of motivation: what are our basic motives? Initially, Freud had proposed self-preservation and sex as the two basic drives, much like the evolutionary concept of reproductive success, which includes survival and reproduction. His decision to change from self-preservation to aggression stemmed in part from living through World War I and witnessing the beginning of World War II in Europe. If aggression on such a massive scale kept breaking through in the most ‘civilised’ societies, he reasoned, it must be a basic motivational force.
eBook - PDF- Nancy Ogden, Michael Boyes, Evelyn Field, Ronald Comer, Elizabeth Gould(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
What aspects of sexual behaviour are affected by our cultural standards? 11. What are the phases of the sexual response cycle described by Masters and Johnson and what happens at each one? 12. What biological factors has research found to be related to sexual orientation? What Do You Think? • Describe the specific cultural standards for sexual behaviour that affect your peer group. Gay marriage and the law Former Ontario health minister, George Smitherman (left), and his partner; a couple celebrates their wedding in front of Toronto’s City Hall. The relationship between the law and psychology is not always clear. Research is increasingly showing that homosexuality is a natural human phenomenon. Societal acceptance is increasing, and Canada has taken a positive step by legalizing gay marriage. Charla Jones / Toronto Star / Getty Images Tony Bock / Toronto Star / Getty Images Psychological Motivations: Individual Factors 455 THE CANADIAN PRESS/CP Epic motivation Terry Fox is one of Canada’s most famous athletes and heroes. In 1980, he began his Marathon of Hope when he dipped his artificial leg, replacing the leg he lost to cancer, in the Atlantic Ocean. His dream was to raise $1 for every Canadian alive to help defeat cancer. He journeyed 5,373 km before having to quit due to cancer in his lungs. He passed away from cancer one month short of his 23rd birthday. Psychological Motivations: Individual Factors LEARNING OBJECTIVE 4 Describe how unconscious/conscious, approach/avoidance, intrinsic/extrinsic, and fixed/ growth mindsets affect our motivational drive. Motivation is a term we are all familiar with, and we can often observe it in others, but it is difficult to study from a psychological point of view because it is an inner drive, or urge to behave in a particular way, to achieve a particular goal. We can’t see motivation; we can only see its behavioural results.
eBook - PDF- Siri Carpenter, Karen Huffman(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Each emphasizes different sequences or aspects of the three elements, and each has its limits and contributions to our understanding of emotion. Other research emphasizes how different pathways in the brain trigger faster and slower emotional responses, as shown in the diagram. 2 Motivation and Behavior 289 • Hunger is one of the strongest motivational drives, and both biological (the stomach, biochemistry, the brain) and psychosocial (stimulus cues and cultural conditioning) fac-tors affect hunger and eating. These same factors play a role in obesity , anorexia nervosa , and bulimia nervosa . • The key to understanding what motivates high-achieving individuals lies in a high need for achievement (nAch), or achievement motivation , which is learned in early child-hood, primarily through interactions with parents. • The human motivation for sex is extremely strong. Mas -ters and Johnson first studied and described the sexual response cycle , the series of physiological and sexual responses that occurs during sexual activity. Other sex re-search has focused on the roots of sexual orientation , and most studies suggest that genetics and biology play the dominant role. Sexual orientation remains a divisive issue, and gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people often confront sexual prejudice . • Providing extrinsic motivation (money, praise, or other incentives) for an intrinsically satisfying activity can under-mine people’s enjoyment and interest ( intrinsic motiva-tion ) for the activity, as shown in the graph. This is espe-cially true when extrinsic motivation is used to control—for example, when parents give children money or privileges for achieving good grades.
eBook - PDFFunctional and Dysfunctional Sexual Behavior
A Synthesis of Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology
- Anders Agmo(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
C H A P T E R 2 An incentive motivational framework and the description of sexual behaviors 1 Sexual Motivation: theoretical framework As was pointed out in Chapter 1, Sexual Motivation is not activated by endoge-nous events but by an external stimulus. This is not the whole story, though. The external stimulus must initiate some processes within the central nervous system and these internal processes must sooner or later translate themselves into observ-able behavior, which means activity in skeletal muscles. This overt activity may or may not be associated with responses in the autonomous nervous system. In order to understand the mechanisms of motivation, it is essential to have some basic knowledge of the interactions between certain kinds of stimuli, central nervous activities and behavior. To that end, the incentive motivation theory elaborated by Dalbir Bindra (Bindra, 1969, 1974, 1976, 1978) is most useful. I will start this chap-ter with an introduction to that theory. Environmental stimuli can be divided into three classes. Those that have no effect on an organism’s behavior are neutral. The vast majority of stimuli belong to this class. Some stimuli may activate approach behaviors and once approached they may be consumed or interacted with in a variety of forms. An example is food, which is not only approached but also eaten if the organism is in an appropriate state. Another example could be a conspecific of the opposite sex. If the organism is in an appropriate state, it approaches a conspecific and, if that conspecific also is in an appropriate state, sexual interactions may be initiated. If not, social instead of sexual interactions may occur. Any stimulus inducing approach behavior in the organism is a positive incentive.
- Sarah Rundle(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
BIOLOGICAL MOTIVES III: SEX Sex Is Different 81. Sex is different from hunger and thirst in that a. the sexual motive is aroused by a narrow and well-defined range of stimuli. b. sexual behavior replaces energy. c. it is necessary for the survival of both the individual and the species. *d. humans seek arousal of the sexual motive as well as the reduction of the sexual motive. (p. 235) 82. Because humans seek sexual arousal, because it uses rather than replaces energy, and because sex is not necessary for individual survival, it is concluded that the sexual motive a. should not be considered a biological motive. b. resembles the hunger motive more than the thirst motive. c. resembles the thirst motive more than the hunger motive. *d. is different from both the hunger motive and the thirst motive, (p. 235) 83. If chickens could read, they probably wouldn't look at the centerfold of Rooster or be titillated by novels like Valley of the Chicks because a. reproduction in chickens is asexual; baby chickens come from eggs. b. chickens are known to have high motivation for violence and aggression and low motivation for sex. c. sexual behavior in chickens is completely dependent on the estrus cycle in males. *d. chickens are not sexually aroused by a wide range of stimuli and probably do not seek sexual arousal, (p. 235) MOTIVATION 105 The Study of Sex Has Been Neglected 84. In the early part of the twentieth century, John B. Watson attempted to study sexual behavior by a. observing primates in a natural environment. b. interviewing college students. *c. recording physiological changes in himself and in his partner, (p. 2351 d. hiding under beds in hotel rooms. 85. In their studies of human sexuality, Masters and Johnson *a. observed sexual behavior and measured bodily changes, (p. 236) b. mailed questionnaires to over 200,000 adult Americans. c. made detailed measurements of the changes that occur during puberty.
eBook - PDFEssentials of Psychology
Concepts and Applications
- Jeffrey Nevid(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 286 CHAPTER 8 MOTIVATION AND EMOTION The term motivation refers to factors that activate, direct, and sustain goal-directed behavior. If, after a few hours of not eating, you get up from your chair and go to the kitchen to fix yourself a snack, we might infer that the motive for your behav- ior is hunger. The hunger motive activates your behavior (causing you to stand), directs it (moving you toward the kitchen), and sustains it (as you make yourself a snack and consume it) until you’ve achieved your goal (satisfying your hunger). Motives are the “whys” of behavior—the needs or wants that drive behavior and explain why we do what we do. We don’t directly observe a motive; rather, we infer that one exists based on the behavior we observe. In this module, we focus on the biological and psychological sources of mo- tivation and the various theories psychologists have constructed to explain moti- vated behavior. None of these theories offers a complete explanation of motivated behavior, but each contributes something to our understanding of the “whys” of behavior. Biological Sources of Motivation We need oxygen to breathe, food for energy, water to remain hydrated, and protec- tion from the elements. These basic biological needs motivate much of our behav- ior. Biological needs are inborn. We don’t learn to breathe or to become hungry or thirsty. Nonetheless, learning and experience influence how we satisfy our biological needs, especially our need for food.
eBook - PDF- John P. Houston, Helen Bee, David C. Rimm(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
240 Chapter 7 Motivation Sensory-seeking motives Many of the motivational systems we have talked about so far have some identifiable physiological correlates. Hunger and thirst, for example, are associated with specific tissue needs within the body. Each of these fits a drive-reduction concept of motivation, because as a tissue need increases, arousal and drive also increase. Drive motivates the animal to engage in behaviors that will reduce the tissue need. But a good deal of our behavior does not seem to fit into this simple conception. For example, we have already seen that sex, although it is usually categorized as one of the biological motives, cannot be easily thought of in terms of a drive model. Sex, especially among humans, has as much in common with the motives discussed in this section as it does with the drives considered previously. One of the things that sets sexual and other behaviors apart from clearly driven behavior is that we often seek to increase rather than decrease tension and arousal. We go to plays, movies, and sporting events, looking for excitement. We play games and attend parties. We seek sexual tension. We seek out other people, and we travel to unfamiliar places. Clearly, there is more to life than quiet con-tentment. We want some action, too. We need stimulus change, and we want to be able to satisfy our curiosity. These kinds of sensory-seeking behaviors fit the optimal-arousal-level theories described earlier better than they fit a simple drive concept. Demonstrations of sensory-seeking behaviors are easily found. We have mentioned Butler's (1953) discovery that monkeys will learn discrimina-tion problems when the reward is nothing more than a brief look around the laboratory. Kish (1955) found that mice confined in darkness will learn to press a bar when the bar pressing does nothing more than turn a light on for a moment. If confined in light, mice will learn to press a bar to turn the light off momentarily.
eBook - PDF- Ronald Comer, Elizabeth Gould, Adrian Furnham(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Kaplan believed that desire – basically, whether you are ‘in the mood’ – was a necessary condition to motivate an individual to become excited (Kaplan, 1977). The research of Masters and Johnson and those that followed, such as Kaplan, was particularly influential to US society, because it encour- aged women to enjoy sex, which was previously considered inappropriate (Weiss, 2000). Masters and Johnson ’s research also dispelled myths about ageing and sexual behaviour. Prior to their research, the conventional view was that sexual behaviour was the realm of young to middle-aged adults and that after a certain age sexual behaviour was minimal, if not physically impossible. As a result of Masters and Johnson ’s research, as well as others that followed, the current view is that sexual behaviour can continue throughout old age, pro- viding a person remains physically healthy and has a willing partner (Waite et al., 2009; DeLamater & Karraker, 2009). Although the work of the early sex researchers was highly controversial at the time it was conducted and their methods have been questioned since then (Cochran et al., 1953), the publicity these researchers received increased awareness of sexual behaviour, which had a lasting effect, altering society’s standards of what is considered normal (Gagnon, 1975). This body of psychology research emphasized that sexual behav- iour is a wholesome and healthy activity, another major change in thinking compared with earlier, more restrictive attitudes. It also encouraged later researchers to explore our physiological responses, including what happens in the brain during sex, thus broadening the field of acceptable research. What Happens in the Brain during Sex? Reproductive hormones are clearly important factors in mod- ulating sexual behaviour (Raskin et al., 2009; Kudwa et al., 2006; Berman, 2005). In males, the testes and adrenal glands produce male sex hormones collectively referred to as andro- gens.
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