A study was undertaken by a graduate student Dana Atzil Slonim and Dr. Orya Tishby of the ‘Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare’ at the ‘Hebrew University of Jerusalem’, in cooperation with Prof. Jacques Barber and Dr. Carol Foltz from the ‘University of Pennsylvania’ to evaluate the accuracy of the perception and description given by men and women in regards to the their relationships and the feelings associated with them.

97 American couples participated in this research, enjoying the different marital status and age groups between 18 and 46. The researchers prepared a questionnaire, focusing mainly on understanding the sensitivity shown by the couples in their relationships in three main contexts.

They tried to study the participants’ wishes and desires in relation to their partners in romance, the kind of responses, they expect their partners to give towards these wishes and desires and how would they react themselves to these responses. The questionnaire carried two kinds of questions to be answered. First how they evaluate their relationships with their partners and secondly how do they think their partners would respond to the same question.

The results shown by the survey showed a general agreement in terms of partners towards the conflicts and the feelings of love, care and sensitivity towards each other. Both wanted to avoid clashes in the relationship and similarities in the feelings. This similarity was more prevalent among the married couples. They were found to more alike in their attitudes towards each other more than what they perceived of each other’s responsiveness.

There were certain areas where there was a higher degree of disagreement regarding the opinions on certain topics, like the fear of being left or discarded out of the relationship, feeling of independence and attitude towards sex. The women were rated more ridden of fear and apprehension of being thrown out of the relationship by men whereas women rated them lower on that. Men rated themselves to be carrying a higher degree of fear and threat as compared to the opinion given by the women folk who found the men to be less ridden with such fears and doubts.

Men were rated to be found more independent by the women, few degrees higher than what they thought of themselves. Men complained of females to be less interested and more fearful in matters of physical intimacy and sex. Women gave better scores to themselves in these points.

The results showed that the women are more accurate than their men partners in projecting their thoughts about themselves and their partners too.
It also threw light on the thought patterns which were found to be mainly influenced by the popular stereotypes related to man-woman relationship. The partners projected opinions more under the influence of these popular notions rather than trying to discover the true feelings and desires in each other.

This gives stress to open communication which should be there among the couples so that the conflicts could be reduced and the quality of relationship could be improved upon.

A person’s self image religious convictions and societal pressure can all impact a person’s sense of their sexual self in both positive and negative ways. Sex has been a controversial subject for centuries, beginning before Roman times when prostitutes were tolerated in order to spare “good” women from the onerous duty of having sex with their husbands.

Women were also punished as being more “sinful” than men, an attitude that continues to this day in countries were women are forbidden to mix with men that are no related to them and are forced to keep themselves covered in order to prevent men from becoming “inflamed” by the site if them.

Sigmund Freud is perhaps the best known psychologist that studied sex and sexual attitudes. It was Freud who coined the term “erogenous zone” and “Oedipus complex,” both concepts that are common today. Many people now view Freud’s research as flawed.

While some believe he was a trailblazer in the field of sexual psychology, others believe that he caused irreparable harm to the field of sexuality research. Other psychologist, besides Freud, have studied the effect of the childhood on sexual attitudes and behaviors and while some have found many of his studies and conclusions to be true, many more have been proven false.. For instance, many current researchers believe that if a child is discovered engaging in sex play and receives punishment for it, the child could become an adult that suffers from sexual dysfunction. Freud believed that such behaviors were irreparable, but many now believe that sexual dysfunction can be much improved through treatment. Thousands of psychologists today make their lives studying the psychology of sex. Many more have built thriving medical practices by treating people with sexual dysfunction and psychological issues related to their sense of sexual self. With a caring therapists, most people can lead a fulfilling sex life.

The psychology of sex is not only influenced by upbringing, but also by societal norms and expectations. Social pressure is very strong and many people feel forced to conform to sexual behavior that is held up as normal in society. Human sexual behavior is controlled by behavioral rules and any straying from these rules are often called “deviant.”

Application of such “abnormal” or “deviant” labels can adversely affect a person’s sex drive and sense of self. Examples of behaviors that have been labels as deviant include dominance play, homosexuality, bisexuality and interracial sexual behavior. Most psychologists no longer believe that these practices are deviant or harmful, but many people in society continue to think poorly of people who engage in these behaviors. People who participate in these behaviors may suffer from low self esteem and a reduced sense of self worth due to society’s harsh judgment against them.

Self-esteem is also an important part of the psychology of sex. Studies have shown that people with low self esteem suffer from an absent sex drive or an increased need to have sex in an attempt to prove their self worth and desirability. Both ends of the spectrum can cause psychological harm. People who feel unattractive and withdraw are often perpetuating a self-fulfilling prophecy. By not engaging in a relationship, they continue to believe that they are too unattractive to be sexually desirable. People who engage in promiscuous behavior will continue to suffer from low self esteem because of a lack of emotionally connected relationships. Psychological treatment may be required if a dysfunction is particularly severe, but both conditions can be successfully treated with psychotherapy.

Religious beliefs can also impact the psychology of sex. Many people in strict religious households were raised in an environment in which sex was looked on as sinful and dirty.

Religious leaders as far back as ST. Thomas Aquinas have written long treatise on the sinfulness of sex. Women were seen as being particularly vulnerable to the temptations of the flesh, and were regarded as more sinful than men. These attitudes persist in many forms today. It is a common stereotype that men who have multiple sexual partners are “studs” while women who practice such behavior are usually categorized as having loose or low morals. Such beliefs have not only impacted the psychology of sex of everyday people, it has also made it increasingly difficult for sex researchers to have access to government funds for research on sexual psychology. Sex education has also suffered from attitudes of sex as bad or harmful.

Jealousy also affects sexual psychology. Jealousy, however, affects men and women in different ways. According to a study by John Edlund of Northern Illinois University, men are more likely to suffer from sexual jealousy in response to actual sexual infidelity. Women were more likely to suffer from sexual jealousy if there was a perceived emotional connection between her mate and another woman.

The study shows a major difference in the way women and men process the sexual experience. For men, sex is primarily a physical act to an innate drive. For women, sex is a part of a process that includes emotional bonding. It has been said that men need to have sex to feel close and women need to feel close in order to have sex.

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”There has been little attention paid to the relationship between these impairments and clinical outcomes”, explains Staci Gruber.

Staci Gruber and colleague researchers from the “Harvard Medical School in Belmont, Massachusetts” conducted intensive study and the findings of this research study have also been published in the “Journal of Affective Disorders” recently.

With an objective to determine the pattern and extent of cognitive deficits in bipolar disorder, the team studied 26 bipolar patients with an average age of 25.3 years during their first hospitalization, and 20 psychiatrically healthy controls that were matched for age, sex, handedness, and parental socioeconomic status.

During the period of study investigations, the participants completed a series of tests of frontal or executive control, psychomotor speed, and memory function at baseline, and were administered a self-report tool to assess the time to recover in days, at 12 months after enrollment.

The results, published in the ‘Journal of Affective Disorders’, indicate that bipolar patients performed significantly worse in comparison to the healthy individuals on all parts of the’ Trial Making Test’, on the Color Naming part of the ‘Stroop Color-Word Test’, and on both the total categories and total perseverations of the ‘Wisconsin Card Sorting Test’.

In addition to these results, the research team also observed that there was a significant association between the time to recover and performance on the interference condition and derived interference scores on the ‘Stroop test’. Researchers also noted the becoming trend towards a significant association between time to clinical recovery and verbal fluency.

Furthermore, the neuropsychological deficits were seen in patients early in the course of the illness, prior to the neurotoxic effects of repeated affective episodes, or alterations secondary to chronic treatment with pharmacologic agents.

“These neuropsychological measures may be associated with dysfunction in frontal regions, particularly the anterior cingulated cortex”, said Staci Gruber.

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