Abstract
Despite the frequent need to down-regulate sexual desire, existing studies are scarce, and focus on strategies that involve disengagement from processing sexual stimuli. Accordingly, the present study compared the efficacy of down-regulating sexual desire via disengagement (attentional distraction) and engagement (situation-focused reappraisal) strategies. Utilizing Event Related Potentials, we measured the Late Positive Potential (LPP) – an electro-cortical component that denotes processing of arousing stimuli, showing decreased amplitudes during successful down-regulation. Additionally, we explored whether the sexual-intensity level of stimuli (validated in a pilot study) impacts the efficacy of, and individuals’ behavioral preferences for distraction and situation-focused reappraisal. Supporting our predictions, relative to passive watching, both strategies successfully attenuated self-reported desire and LPP amplitudes, with a marginal trend (p =.07) showing stronger LPP attenuation during distraction compared to reappraisal. While sexual-intensity did not moderate regulatory efficacy, as predicted, disengagement-distraction preference increased for sexually-intense relative to sexually-mild stimuli. Broad implications are discussed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 116-124 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Biological Psychology |
| Volume | 137 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Sep 2018 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Distraction
- Emotion regulation
- Late positive potential
- Reappraisal
- Sexual desire
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Neuroscience
- Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology