Poster display
The Effect of Sexual Arousal on Women´S Disgust Reactions: Facial Attractiveness and Disease Cues
F. Zsok
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University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom
D. S. Fleischman
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University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom
https://doi.org/10.21465/2016-KP-P-0001
Fulltext (english, pages 127-127).pdf
Abstracts
Objective: Disgust and sexual arousal are two opposing states. One motivates avoidance, while the other elicits approaching behaviour. Former research has found that a person is harder to sexually arouse if disgusted. In turn, the effects of sexual arousal on disgust are more differentiated. A general trend shows that people are less disgust sensitive when they are sexually aroused, but this appears to depend on what elicits the disgust. This study is supposed to explore what exactly becomes less disgusting when women are sexually aroused.
Design and Method: Female undergraduates are going to participate in an experiment from their personal computer at home. They are going to be shown a video, either a sexually arousing one or a neutral one. Then, they will be asked to rate their disgust towards increasingly sexual behaviours with six men on pictures. The pictures will consist of attractive, unattractive, and blemished and unblemished faces. That way the effects and interactions of sexual arousal, attractiveness, and disease cues (blemishes) can be explored.
Results: The study is currently running and should be completed at the end of February. We expect results to show that sexually aroused women feel less disgusted towards activities with attractive males. Disease cues should dampen the effect of sexual arousal on disgust.
Conclusions: Expected results would support the evolutionary view that disgust is only reduced by sexual arousal if the mating encounter seems beneficial for the female.