Freytag, Pauline (2025) The Impact of an Aversive Pain Conditioning Procedure on Sexual Arousal in Heterosexual Women. Research Master thesis, Research Master.
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Abstract
Sexual issues are highly prevalent among women, with 10-28% suffering from pain-related female sexual dysfunctions (FSD). Repeated painful sexual experiences may link sexual cues with pain, forming pain expectancies that have been proposed as a potential aetiological or maintaining factor in pain-related FSDs. This study tested whether a sexual cue could acquire predictive value of pain through a differential conditioning procedure, where a conditioned stimulus (CS+) was paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US), while a similar CS- was not. H1 predicted that conditioning would induce pain expectancies, reducing subjective sexual arousal and increasing negative affect toward the CS+ relative to the CS-. H2 predicted that a CS-only extinction procedure would reduce differential pain expectancies and attenuate affective and arousal differences between the CSs. A sample of predominantly heterosexual, healthy women (N = 32) viewed two 8-second pornographic films across 20 acquisition trials with 100% US-CS+ contingency and 20 extinction trials with no US and subsequent preferences to rewatch either video. The CS+ elicited higher pain expectancies that persisted through extinction. Unexpectedly, the CS+ was rated as more sexually arousing. No other evaluative conditioning effects on affect were found. These findings support contingent sex pain experiences to result in robust pain expectancies, but do not support the assumption that these expectancies reduce sexual arousal.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Research Master) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Borg, C. |
| Degree programme: | Research Master |
| Differentiation route: | Mental health: perspectives from Neuro- and Clinical Psychology [Research Master] |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Aug 2025 08:48 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Aug 2025 08:48 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5836 |
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