The valence of sex: Automatic affective associations in erotophilia and erotophobia

• Published in: Personality and individual differences Vol. 51; no. 6; pp. 699 - 703
• Main Authors: Macapagal, Kathryn R., Janssen, Erick
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01-10-2011; Elsevier
• Subjects: Affect; Affective responses; Automatic processes; Backward and forward masking; Backward masking; Biological and medical sciences; Erotophobia–erotophilia; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Negative emotions; Personality. Affectivity; Priming; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Sexual dysfunction; Sexual stimuli; Sexuality; Sexuality. Sexual behavior; Sexual stimuli; Backward and forward masking; Priming; Erotophobia–erotophilia; Affect; Automatic processes; Human; Affect affectivity; Priming effect; Sexual behavior; Sex; Associative relation; Cognition; Emotion emotionality; Automatic processing; Valence; Masking; Erotophobia-erotophilia
• ISSN: 0191-8869; 1873-3549
• DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.008

► Positive and negative sexual attitudes may impact automatic reactions to sex. ► A priming task and a measure of erotophobia–erotophilia were used to test this idea. ► Erotophilia facilitated links between sexual primes and positively-valenced targets. ► Erotophobia did not affect responses to sex primes and negatively-valenced targets. ► Automatic processing of valence of sex partly depends on affective responses to sex.
Sexual stimuli may elicit positive and negative emotions that can impact sexual thoughts, responses, and behavior. To date, most research on affect and sexuality has focused on conscious processes and affective states. Less is known about how automatic and trait-level affective processes influence our reactions to sexual stimuli. This study used a priming task with backward masking and a trait measure of erotophobia–erotophilia – the tendency to respond to sex on a negative-to-positive continuum – to improve our understanding of the role of automatic and affective processes in response to sexual stimuli. Erotophilic individuals demonstrated automatic associations between sexual primes and positively-valenced targets, whereas erotophobic individuals classified negatively-valenced targets faster regardless of whether primes were sexual or neutral. The findings suggest that the valence of sexual stimuli can be processed automatically and is associated with trait-level affective responses to sex. Implications for research on risky sexual behavior and sexual dysfunction are discussed.