Rational-emotive behavior therapy and the formation of stimulus equivalence classes.

Stimulus equivalence is a behavioral approach to analyzing the "meaning" of stimulus sets and has an implication for clinical psychology. The formation of three-member (A --> B --> C) stimulus equivalence classes was used to investigate the effects of three different sets of sample and comparison stimuli on emergent behavior. The three stimulus sets were composed of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)-related words, non-REBT emotionally charged words, and a third category of neutral words composed of flower labels. Sixty-two women and men participated in a modified matching-to-sample experiment. Using a mixed cross-over design, and controlling for serial order effects, participants received conditional training and emergent relationship training in the three stimulus set conditions. Results revealed a significant interaction between the formation of stimulus equivalence classes and stimulus meaning, indicating consistently biased responding in favor of reaching criterion responding more slowly for REBT-related and non-REBT emotionally charged words. Results were examined in the context of an analysis of the importance of stimulus meaning on behavior and the relation of stimulus meaning to behavioral and cognitive theories, with special appraisal given to the influence of fear-related discriminative stimuli on behavior.

The relationship of male self-report of rape supportive attitudes, sexual fantasy, social desirability and physiological arousal to sexually coercive stimuli.

Studies have supported the finding that sexually coercive behavior exists between males and females on college campuses and that when women say "no" to sexual behavior, men do not believe them. This study utilized penile plethysmography to investigate male sexual arousal to rape myth scenarios in a college population. The scenarios portrayed a woman who said "no" to sexually coercive intercourse behavior by a male. Results indicated that a low level of social desirability, sexual fantasies involving group sexual activity, as well as hurting and being hurt by a partner were associated with greater levels of physiological responding to coercive stimuli. Supportive attitudes about rape showed no relationship with physiological responding, yet did correlate with the sexual fantasy of being hurt by a partner, which was itself related to increased sexual arousal to sexually coercive audio stimuli.

A multivariate analysis of the sexual fantasy themes of college men.

Understanding sexual fantasies is important to the scientific study of human sexuality. A sexual fantasy refers to a private or covert experience in which the imagination of desirable sexual activity with a partner is sexually arousing to the individual. Prior sexual experiences of an individual appear to increase the incidence of sexual fantasies, as well as the variety of sexual themes in a fantasy, which permit a greater elaboration of the fantasy theme when compared to less sexually experienced individuals. The present study was an investigation of the factors or sexual themes that emerge in a college male population, as well as a comparison of college men with human samples obtained in other studies: a sample of men and women and a sample of sexually variant men. In this study, 116 male students, all of whom identified themselves as heterosexual, completed the Wilson Sex Fantasy Questionnaire (WSFQ). Results indicated that the present sample had significantly more exploratory, intimate, impersonal, and total sexual fantasies than sexual fantasies reported by female respondents in another study using the WSFQ and significantly more intimate, impersonal, and total sexual fantasizing when compared with a male sample in another study. The men in this study also evidenced less deviant areas of sexual fantasizing when compared with a group of sexually variant men in another study. A principal components analysis extracted four factors, which accounted for 45% of the total variance. The four sexual fantasy topic areas for the most part replicated prior findings by Wilson (1988) but are also more heterogeneous, indicating that male college students engage in a variety of sexual fantasies but seem to favor more intimate, less deviant or exploratory sexual themes that are in line with nonclinical samples and different from several clinical samples of sexually variant men.

The effect of condoms in sexually explicit narratives on male sexual arousal.

Research into why people choose not to use condoms despite a growing AIDS epidemic has tapped the attitude that the use of condoms somehow interferes with the progression of the sexual act or lessens sexual pleasure. The current study investigated the effects on male sexual arousal of condom use described in sexually explicit audiotaped narratives. The sexual arousal of 14 male university students was measured physiologically by penile plethysmography and by self-report using a within-subjects design. Subjects listened to 10 audiotaped scripts, half of which included the use of a condom and half of which did not. No significant differences in either physiological or subjective arousal data were found between conditions.

PIP: It has been speculated that some people who choose not to use condoms in the context of a growing AIDS pandemic do so because condom use interferes with the progression of the sexual act or lessens sexual pleasure. 14 male students in undergraduate psychology courses at the University of North Dakota volunteered to listen to sexually explicit audiotaped narratives in a study of male sexual arousal in the context of condom use. 20 audio scripts based upon 10 sexually explicit scenarios were used in the study. Each approximately two-minute long script depicted sexual interactions culminating in sexual intercourse between an adult male and an adult female. Ten scripts depicted scenarios involving no condom use. Modified versions of these scripts included condom use, thereby comprising the other 10 scenarios. The scripts were recorded on standard audiotapes by an adult female not connected with the study. Each volunteer was placed alone in a room furnished with only a reclining chair, a pair of stereo headphones, and a Likert scale mounted on a wall four feet from the chair. The young men were told how to apply and calibrate the Parks Medical Electronics, Inc. model 240-A mercury-in-rubber strain gauge plethysmograph, a device capable of measuring slight changes in penile circumference. Each subject then alternately heard 10 randomly selected scripts, half involving condom use and half not. Physiological data on penile response while listening to the tapes were collected via Advanced CODAS software and stored individually for each subject on a Gateway computer. Each subject also reported upon his sexual arousal. No significant differences were observed in physiologically and subjectively assessed patterns of male sexual arousal between the condom-present and condom-absent conditions. The brief description of putting on a condom within a sexually explicit audiotaped narrative had neither detrimental nor enhancing effects upon male sexual arousal. That condoms and condom use truly have no effect upon male sexual arousal is, however, only one of many possible explanations for these findings.