THE EXPERIMENTAL-ANALYSIS OF HUMAN SEXUAL AROUSAL - SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Experimental analyses of human sexual arousal have been decidedly spar se. Recent developments in the analysis of derived relational respondi ng, however, have opened the way for a modern behavior-analytic treatm ent of complex or ''novel'' human behavior, including specific instanc es of human sexual arousal. The current article examines some of these developments and their relevance to the analysis of emotional behavio r, with a focus on sexual arousal. Recent research that has examined t he acquisition of sexual stimulus functions within a relational frame paradigm is then outlined. Finally, a series of relational frame inter pretations of a variety of human sexual arousal phenomena is offered.