Understanding human ambivalence about sex: The effects of stripping sex of meaning

Abstract

We offer a theoretical perspective to provide insight into why people are ambivalent about sex and why cultures regulate sex and attach symbolic meaning to it. Building on terror management theory, we propose that sex is problematic for humankind in part because it reminds us of our creaturely mortal nature. Two experiments investigated the effects of reminding people of the similarity between humans and other animals on their reactions to the physical aspects of sex. In Study 1, priming human-animal similarities led to increased accessibility of death-related thoughts after thinking about the physical but not romantic aspects of sex. In Study 2, when participants were reminded of similarities between humans and other animals, mortality salience resulted in decreased attraction to the physical but not romantic aspects of sex. In each study, priming thoughts about how humans are distinct from animals eliminated the association between sex and death.

Disgust, creatureliness and the accessibility of death‐related thoughts

“…In this study we also exposed participants to an essay that emphasized human/animal similarities or an essay that emphasized how humans were distinct from other animals prior to exposure to the images (see Goldenberg et al, 2001). We expected that, as in Goldenberg et al (2002) research on the physical aspects of sex, the creatureliness essay prime may interact with the effect of the disgusting image on death-thought accessibility, since our perspective implies that disgusting stimuli are threatening due to concerns with one's animal nature.…”

“…Building on these studies, Goldenberg et al (2002) more explicitly tested whether the connection between the physical aspects of sex and mortality concerns was accounted for by the tendency to associate physical sex with animal-like behavior. Thus, it was hypothesized that reminders of the similarities between humans and other animals (i.e., creatureliness) would lead individuals, independent of their level of neuroticism, to exhibit the same pattern of results found only among neurotic participants in the previous research.…”

“…Following Becker, terror management theory (TMT) argues that people regulate the human body as a way to psychologically distance themselves from their animal nature and thereby deny mortality concerns (Goldenberg, Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2000). In tests of this proposition, several empirical studies have shown that reminding people of death leads to more negative attitudes toward the physical aspects of the body and sex; other studies have shown that priming thoughts about physical sex increases the accessibility of death-related thoughts (Goldenberg, Cox, Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2002;Goldenberg et al, 2001;Goldenberg, Pyszczynski, McCoy, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999). Based on these findings, the current studies were designed to more directly investigate the relationship between animal-nature disgust and cognitive representations of death.…”

The Smolensk Disaster and the Dynamics of Death-Related Thoughts Accessibility

“…Respondents are asked to do a task involving the creation of words: respondents are given the first letters of a word, then are asked to provide the remaining letters to complete the word (e.g. Bassili & Smith, 1986;Goldenberg et al, 1999, 2002, Chatard et al, 2011. For example, a word starting with the letters coffshould be completed with two more letters at the end, and another word starting with to-completed using three letters.…”

Visual reminders of death enhance nociceptive-related cortical responses and event-related alpha desynchronisation

“…Studies indicate that reminders of mortality significantly increase denial of similarities between humans and other animals as well as disgust for bodily products (Goldenberg et al, 2001). When individuals are primed to associate the physical aspects of sex with animalistic behaviour, mortality reminders seem to reduce the appeal for sex (Goldenberg et al, 2002). Threats associated with the animal nature of our body seem to hinder the attitude toward healthy behaviours.…”