Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 5, 2026

Treatment Model for Young Patients with Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction and Resultant Infertility
Published on: May 30, 2025
[A socio-cognitive approach of human sexual desire]
S Ortigue1, F Bianchi-Demicheli
1Sage Center for the Study of the Mind, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara 93106, USA.
Abstract:
The ability to direct motivational feelings towards another person, and develop an intimate partner-relationship is important for social interaction, notably for sexual desire (SD). The recent discovery of a brain network for SD recruiting higher-order cognitive brain areas (angular gyrus), in addition to emotional limbic brain regions, suggests that SD is sustained by cognitive mechanisms, rather than by instinct only. Critically recent studies in social cognitive neuroscience support the interaction between SD and a self expansion model. The findings we report here are important theoretically and practically.
Related Concept Videos
Horney's Sociocultural Approach
Psychosexual Theory of Development
The Five Stages of Psychosexual Development
Freud's psychosexual...
Criticisms of the Evolutionary Perspective
Evolutionary psychology provides one explanation for these findings, suggesting...
Psychosexual Stages of Personality: Genital
Social Cognitive Perspective on Personality
Psychosexual Stages of Personality: Phallic

