SHYNESS AND REDUCED SEXUAL AROUSAL IN MALES - THE TRANSFERENCE OF COGNITIVE INTERFERENCE

Our purpose in this study was to show that the cognitive interference created by shyness can carry over and interfere with subsequent sexual arousal. Half of the male participants were asked to interact with th e experimenter by answering a set of questions for 5 min. The remainin g half were asked to sit alone and answer those same questions on pape r. Following this, all participants were asked to view a sexually expl icit video while their self-perceived sexual arousal was measured by c omputer. As expected, for shy participants only, cognitive interferenc e mediated the relationship between interacting socially and reduced s exual arousal. The findings are discussed in terms of carry-over follo wing learned helplessness and simple transference (e.g., rumination).