USING SOCIAL-LEARNING THEORY TO EXPLAIN INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN HUMAN-SEXUALITY

To explain individual differences in human sexual expression, investig ators most often stress either physiological or experiential determina nts. Psychologists commonly espouse some variant of learning theory (c lassical conditioning, operant conditioning, or social beaming theory) as an explanatory framework and a source of hypotheses and methodolog y. The historical use of social learning theory is described in this a rticle, and we review its central aspects and provide examples of sexu ality research in which it plays a major role. Specifically we describ e both early and current research in four broad topic areas: sexuality development, adolescent sexuality and contraceptive use, health-relat ed sexual behavior, and coercive sexuality Social learning theory is t hen evaluated and compared with competing theories regarding its abili ty to explain empirical data, its predictive utility, and its parsimon y.