 Aggression – Males tend to show overt aggression (conduct disorders) while females tend to be more relationally aggressive (social aggression).  Cognitive Differences – Shrinking gap in job disparity in science and engineering  Gender Similarities Hypothesis – Gender’s are more similar than they are different.  What factors influence choice (like career) in gender?

 Sexuality – How people experience and express themselves as sexual beings.  Activity Involved with sexual pleasure  Society says…..  Women be selective, men not so much  Clark and Hatfield Study (FSU, 89’)  Female and Male actors sent to approach member of opposite sex and say the following “I have been noticing you around campus, I find you very attractive.” This would be followed by one of the following:  Would you like to go on a date with me?  Would you like to go to my apartment with me?  Would you like to go to bed with me? 

 Question 1:  Males =50%  Females = 55%  Question 2:  Males = 70%  Females = 5%  Question 3:  Males = 77%  Females = 0%

 Other studies have shown similar results, and no differences in homosexual and heterosexual relationships  Males tend to have more partners over a lifetime  Other studies have shown that males report more frequent feelings of sexual arousal, prone to lust more, have more frequent fantasies, and rathe the strength of their own sex drive higher than women do.  Is culture a factor here?  What about evolution factors? (Females have enhanced information recall)

 Women tend to show more changes in their sexual patterns and desires over a lifetime  i.e. Mixed partners  Men are more particular when it comes to targets of attraction according to recent studies measuring biologically arousal

 Emotion, memory, vision, hearing, olfaction, social perception, pain perception, spatial skills, verbal skills, neurotransmitter levels, and many disorders are linked to gender.  Hormones and social learning affect brain development  Males have a larger Amygdala, more sex hormone receptors, and excitatory synapses/neurons than females (80%)  Women have the ability to retain more emotional memory (Vivid)

 Hippocampus – reacts differently in males and females when under stress of conditioning (females have dominant left, males right)  Studies could indicate that neurochemically men and women learn differently.  Males brain shown to have stronger connections between the front and back regions, women stronger between left and right. (Perception vs Social Skills)  Prominent after puberty

 Sexuality is driven by genetics and the activity in the brain.  Society, Culture, Family, Educational, and Environment work to moderate the biological drives  John Locke’s blank slate  Together, the two play a strong role in the formation of personal identity  Freud believed they were the central source of human personality

 Different than all other animal species  More factors involved  Not just for reproduction  Sexual behavior and performance is affected by inability to detect sexual stimuli, label a situation wrong, or misattribute the stimuli.  Humans are educated by the parents

 Alfred Kinsey – Father of sexology. Kinsey Reports  50% of men unfaithful  9% of population bisexual  Newer studies have shown that monogamy tends to rule sexual behavior  75-85% remain faitful  Hard to define what sex actual is?  Sexting? For Reproduction? Lack of arousal?  Is it based on individual perception, experience, intimacy?

 Controls all nerve impulses from the skin and responsible for pleasurable sensations  Regulates hormones which are believed to be the origin of sexual desire  Cerebral Cortex controls sexual thoughts and fantasies  Limbic System (Amygdala) regulate the emotions and feelings that are important for sexual behavior

 Masters and Johnson sex studies – Sexual Response cycle –  Excitement, Plateau, Orgasm, and Resolution  Hypothalamus – Most important part of the brain for sexual functioning  Received input from limbic system  Destroy the hypothalamus, destroy sexual behavior  Next to gland which regulates oxytocin, prolactin, etc.

 Freud – Erogenous Zones, psychosexual development, complexes.  Behaviorists – Consequences and their ramifications. How does early punishment and rewards effect feelings towards sex?  Cognitive – Modeling and thoughts during experiences

The Direction of erotic interests Includes behaviors, desires, feelings, fantasies, and a person’s sense of identity.

 Before the High Middle Ages, homosexual acts appear to have been ignored or tolerated by the Christian church.  During the 12th century however, hostility toward homosexuality began to spread throughout religious and secular institutions.  By the end of the 19th century, homosexuality was viewed as a pathology.  Freud and the resolution Oedipus Complex stated that anybody can be homosexual based on.  He believed that male homosexuality resulted when a young boy had an authoritarian, rejecting mother and turned to his father for love and affection and later to men in general.  He believed female homosexuality developed when a girl loved her mother and identified with her father and became fixated at that stage.

 Homosexual behavior has been observed in 1,500 different species (Rats, primates, giraffes, guppies, ostriches, etc.)  Long term relationships in male penguins.  The origin of sexual orientation is an issue hidden in darkness.  No correlations between style of parenting and behavior  Experimentation in childhood has shown no correlation

 So where do we stand?  Sexual Orientation cannot be explained  Twin studies have shown that genes are not a strong influence  Thickness of the corpus callosum and symmetry between the hemispheres has been correlated with homosexual behavior.  Non-conforming behavior at an early age  2d:4d ratio and prenatal hormones (testosterone)  Testosterone relation to a brain that is attracted to females or males? Smaller 2d:4d ratio?