1. Winters, J., Christoff, K., Lipovsky, L., and Gorzalka, B. B. Hypotheses 1.Self reported sexual arousal will correlate with physiological sexual arousal, as measured by penile plethysmography (PPG), during both experience and regulation trials. 2.Men will exhibit a range of physiological and self reported sexual arousal regulation success. 3.Sexual arousal regulation success will correlate positively with age, sexual experiences and sexual inhibition, and negatively with markers of sexual drive and sexual compulsivity. 4.Those men who are best at regulating their sexual arousal will also be those best at regulating other emotional responses. In the case of this study, the comparison emotion will be amusement. Method There were two parts to the study. First, participants completed an anonymous online survey, which included: Sample A total of 35 men completed both parts of the study. Age27.83 (10.14;18-67) Ethnicity Caucasian Asian Other 24 (68.6%) 6 (17.1%) 5 (14.3%) Sexual Identity Heterosexual Bisexual 31 (88.6%) 4 (11.4%) Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia Analyses SCS SCSTrans To help normalize the positively skewed distribution of SCS scores, a log(10) transform was used (12). The transformed score, SCSTrans, was included in subsequent correlational analyses. Two instruction conditions were crossed with 4 possible responses to produce 8 outcome variables: an online consent form a demographics and general information questionnaire Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Scalesthe Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Scales (SES/SIS; 4- 6); two of three SES/SIS subscales were of interest: SES SES – propensity for sexual excitation SIS2 SIS2 – propensity for sexual inhibition due to threat of performance consequences (e.g. STIs, unwanted pregnancy, etc.) Sexual Desire Inventory-2 SDI-DSD SDI2-SSDthe Sexual Desire Inventory-2 (SDI2; 7); the SDI2 produces two subscales: dyadic sexual desire (SDI-DSD) and solitary sexual desire (SDI2-SSD) Sexual Compulsivity ScaleSCSthe Sexual Compulsivity Scale (SCS; 8) Survey of Sexual Behavioursthe Survey of Sexual Behaviours (SSB); the SSB measures partnered and solitary sexual behaviours Derogatis Sexual Functioning Inventory DSFI-SEthe Derogatis Sexual Functioning Inventory (DSFI; 9); only the DSFI sexual experiences subscale (DSFI-SE) was used Results Descriptive statistics, t tests and correlations are presented below. Paired samples t tests, comparing experience and regulate erotic trials, revealed significant differences for all three sexual response indicators (PPG, self reported sexual arousal and self reported erection). Experience comedy trials were rated significantly more amusing than regulate trials. Response Means * p<.05, ** p<.01, ***p<.005 Correlations * p<.05, ** p<.01 Contact information: Jason Winters Department of Psychology University of British Columbia 2136 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Email: jwinters@interchange.ubc.ca References 1.Adams, H. E., Motsinger, P., McAnulty, R. D., & Moore, A. L. (1992). Voluntary control of penile tumesence among homosexual and heterosexual subjects. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 21(1), 17-31. 2.Mahoney, J. M., & Strassberg, D. S. (1991). Voluntary control of male sexual arousal. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 20(1), 1-16.Dodge, B., Reece, M., Cole, S. L., & Sandford, T. G. M. (2004). Sexual compulsivity among heterosexual college students. Journal of Sex Research, 41(4), 343-350. 3.McAnulty, R. D., & Adams, H. E. (1991). Voluntary control of penile tumescence: Effect of an incentive and a signal detection task. Journal of Sex Research, 28(4), 557-577.Kalichman, S. C., Greenberg, J., & Able, G. G. (1997a). HIV-seropositive men who engage in high-risk sexual behavior: Psychological characteristics and implications for prevention. AIDS Care, 9, 441-450. 4.Janssen, E., Vorst, H., Finn, P., & Bancroft, J. (2002a). The sexual inhibition (SIS) and sexual excitation (SES) scales: I. Measuring sexual inhibition and excitation proneness in men. Journal of Sex Research, 39(2), 114-126. 5.Janssen, E., Vorst, H., Finn, P., & Bancroft, J. (2002b). The sexual inhibition (SIS) and sexual excitation (SES) scales: Ii. Predicting psychophysiological response patterns. Journal of Sex Research, 39(2), 127-132. 6.Carpenter, D. L., Janssen, E., Graham, C. A., Vorst, H., & Wicherts, J. (2006). Estimating the factor structure, reliability, and validity of women’s scores on the Sexual Inhibition/Sexual Excitation Scales (SIS/SES). Manuscript submitted for publication. 7.Spector, I. P., Carey, M. P., & Steinberg, L. (1996). The sexual desire inventory: Development, factor structure, and evidence of reliability. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 22, 175-190. 8.Kalichman, S. C., & Rompa, D. (1995). Sexual sensation seeking and sexual compulsivity scales: Reliability, validity, and predicting HIV risk behavior. Journal of Personality Assessment, 65(3), 586- 601. 9.Derogatis, L., & Melisaratos, N. (1979). The DSFI: A multidimensional measure of sexual functioning. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 5, 244-248.Glass, G. V., & Hopkins, K. D. (1996). Statistical methods in psychology and education (3rd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. 10.Beauregard, M., Levesque, J., & Bourgouin, P. (2001). Neural correlates of conscious self-regulation of emotion. Journal of Neuroscience, 21(18), 165RC:161-166. 11.Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39, 281-291. 12.Glass, G. V., & Hopkins, K. D. (1996). Statistical methods in psychology and education (3rd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. At a later date, participants underwent arousal regulation testing. While being randomly exposed to erotic and comedy video clips, participants were instructed to either experience or regulate their responses. The instruction set was borrowed from a paradigm used in emotion regulation research (10, 11). During the video clip trials, physiological sexual arousal was measured with PPG. After each trial, participants rated the previous video clip, including maximum sexual arousal and erection, and amusement, on a scale of 1 (not at all ) to 9 (maximally). ConditionResponseVariable Experience PPG peak-base millimeters circumference changeE-PPG Self reported maximal sexual arousalE-SRSA Self reported maximum proportion full erectionE-SRFE Self reported amusementE-SRA Regulate PPG peak-base millimeters circumference changeR-PPG Self reported maximal sexual arousalR-SRSA Self reported maximum proportion full erectionR-SRFE Self reported amusementR-SRA Regulation indices were calculated by dividing average response during regulate trials by average response during experience trials. The resulting values were each multiplied by 100 to create 4 percentage regulation indices. Lower index values indicate increased regulation success. Sexual arousal regulations success index: peak-baseSAI-PB Sexual arousal regulations success index: self reported maximum arousalSAI-SRMA Sexual arousal regulations success index: self reported maximum erectionSAI-SRME Amusement regulation success index: self reported amusementAMI-SRA MeanSDMinimumMaximumt (34)E-PPG27.5711.467.9455.37 4.152*** R-PPG20.9810.863.3246.31 E-SRSA5.661.532.258.50 5.833*** R-SRSA4.531.352.006.75 E-SRFE5.511.981.758.50 5.477*** R-SRFE4.131.621.258.25 E-SRA4.651.591.757.50 4.635*** R-SRA3.801.441.507.00 MeanSDMinimumMaximumSAI-PB77.0325.7928.96118.56 SAI-SRMA81.4219.1952.94133.33 SAI-SRME78.5727.4238.46180.00 AMI-SRA85.1028.4733.33200.00 Regulation Success Indices (%) Participants, on average, were able to regulate their sexual responses during erotic trials and their amusement responses during comedy trials.E-PPGE-SRSAE-SRSA.612** p<.001 E-SRFE.625** p<.001.904** p<.001R-PPGR-SRSAR-SRSA.551** p<.001 R-SRFE.590** p<.001.858** p<.001 Across both erotic conditions, physiological sexual arousal, self reported sexual arousal and self reported degree of erection all significantly intercorrelated Erotic Response Correlations SAI-PBSAI-SRMASAI-SRMESAI-SRMA.385* p=.022 SAI-SRME.408* p=.015.854** p<.001 AMI-SRA.247 p=.153.383* p.023.375* p=.027 SAI-PBSAI-SRMASAI-SRMEAge.011 p=.949.104 p=.552.215 p=.216 TM.104 p=.551.013 p=.943.068 p=.697 HP -.286 p=.096 -.127 p=.469 -.236 p=.172 DSFI-SE.185 p=.289.153 p=.381.259 p=.133 SDI2-DSD.103 p=.555.367* p=.030.412* p=.014 SDI2-SSD.062 p=.720.232 p=.179.267 p=.121 SES.211 p=.223.167 p=.339.265 p=.124 SIS2 -.507** p=.002 -.118 p=.500 -.172 p=.324 SCSTrans.126 p=.472.150 p=.389.274 p=.112 * p<.05, ** p<.01 * p<.05, ** p<.01; TM = Weekly Times Masturbating, HP= Weekly Hours Pornography The PPG regulation index correlated negatively with sexual inhibition due to fear of performance consequences but did not correlate with any other variables of interest. The two self report sexual response regulation indices only correlated with dyadic sexual desire. Background A small body of research on the vulnerability of penile plethymography to faking and manipulation of sexual preference indicates that men have some voluntary control over their sexual arousal (1-3). There appears to be large variation in men’s ability to regulate their arousal to preferred stimuli, with some exhibiting moderate success and others failing completely. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have examined the factors differentiating effective from ineffective regulators. Regulation Index Correlations The PPG regulation index correlated with both self report sexual response regulation indices but did not correlate with the amusement regulation index. The two self report sexual response regulation indices correlated with each other and also with the amusement regulation index. Conclusion Hypotheses 1, 2 and 4 were supported by our data. On the other hand, hypothesis 3 was only partially supported. Age and sexual excitation, desire, experiences and compulsivity did not correlate with physiological sexual arousal regulation; however, sexual inhibition due to fear of performance consequences did. Those men scoring highest on sexual inhibition were best able to regulate their physiological sexual arousal. Self reported sexual arousal regulation only correlated with dyadic sexual desire. Higher scores on dyadic sexual desire were related to poorer regulation, as self reported by the participants. Overall, our results suggest that only those men who score high on sexual inhibition should be able to minimize or fake their sexual preference profiles, when assessed with the PPG.