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Extinction of aversive classically conditioned human sexual response
Mirte Brom1, Ellen Laan, Walter Everaerd
1Institute of Psychology, Clinical Psychology Unit, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; Department of Psychosomatic Gynaecology and Sexology, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.
The Journal of Sexual Medicine
|December 18, 2014
Summary
Aversive conditioning with painful stimuli impacted women's sexual responses but not men's. While conditioned sexual responses show persistence, they eventually extinguish over time.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Human Sexuality
Background:
- Acquired likes and dislikes are often resistant to extinction.
- Aversive conditioning can diminish sexual arousal and positive affect toward erotic stimuli.
- Resistance to extinction of conditioned sexual responses has clinical implications but remains understudied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the resistance to extinction of aversive conditioned sexual responses in sexually functional men and women.
- To examine sex differences in the persistence of conditioned sexual responses.
Main Methods:
- A differential conditioning experiment using erotic pictures as conditioned stimuli (CSs) and painful stimuli as unconditioned stimuli (USs).
- Assessed conditioned responses during extinction, including physiological measures (penile circumference, vaginal pulse amplitude) and subjective ratings (affective value, sexual arousal).
- Utilized a stimulus-response compatibility task to evaluate automatic approach/avoidance tendencies.
Main Results:
- Both men and women rated the CS+ (paired with US) more negatively than the CS- (unpaired).
- Women showed reduced vaginal pulse amplitude to CS+ compared to CS- and rated CS+ as less sexually arousing during early extinction.
- Men did not exhibit attenuated genital or subjective sexual responses to the CS+.
Conclusions:
- Aversive conditioning with painful stimuli selectively affects sexual responses in women, not men.
- Conditioned sexual likes and dislikes demonstrate persistence but ultimately undergo extinction.
- Findings highlight sex-specific effects of aversive conditioning on human sexual response.
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