Entwicklung und Validierung eines Instruments zur Messung sexueller Motivation
Allgemeine, Kognitive und Mathematische Psychologie
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The goal of this project was the development and validation of a picture-story measure of the need for sex (nSex). For this purpose, an initial six experimental studies were conducted that aimed at arousing sexual motivation experimentally and examining its effect on concurrent affective responses as an indicator of an ongoing motivational process and changes in picture story content. Across all of these studies, we found robust and replicable evidence that sexual themes increase in picture stories after motivational arousal. These themes included statements of sexual need, goal anticipation, instrumental activity, obstacles, goal attainment, goal-related affect, and context, specified in an nSex coding system. Arousal-induced changes in sexual story content was mediated by changes in affect (facial EMG, self-report, pupil dilation), providing evidence for the notion that the nSex measure is a valid measure of motivation specifically. Arousal-induced changes in sexual story content also mediated experimental manipulation effects on a behavioral criterion measure (relative viewing time for sexual visual stimuli compared to non-sexual stimuli), thus providing evidence for the measure’s criterion validity. By building measurement validation upon a double triangulation approach of experimental manipulation, indicator, measure, and criterion (EMMIC), the project also provides a conceptual blueprint for future measurement validation efforts within and outside motivation science. Two additional studies examined the predictive validity of the nSex measure for attentional and learning processes as well as for longitudinal variations in sexual motivation. These studies provided evidence that nSex is positively associated with the frequency of social sexual activity. Other findings from the project suggest that nSex is associated with organizational effects of gonadal steroids and has small-to-medium correlations with other motive measures derived from content-coding of picture stories (nAffiliation, nPower) and self-report (positive sexual desire). Moreover, the coding system can be learned in such a way as to ensure high inter-coder reliability (> .85). The projects also resulted in a set of picture cues that are particularly suitable for assessing nSex. The coding system, all materials, manuscripts, processing workflows, data, and analyses are or will be made available through open-science platforms. Although a larger part of the project was conducted during the Corona pandemic, all main objectives could be achieved after merging three studies into one and conducting another study online instead of in the laboratory.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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Developing a thematic apperceptive measure of the need for sex: A status report. Motivationspsychologisches Kolloquium, Berlin, Germany
Schultheiss, O. C., Hinzmann, J., Khalaidovski, K., Braun, S., Brummer, J., Förstel, M. & Schwemmer, O.
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Development and validation of a measure of sexual motivation. 24th Congress of World Association for Sexual Health, Mexico City, Mexico
Hinzmann, J., Khalaidovski, K., Braun, S., Brummer, J., Förstel., M., Schwemmer, O. & Schultheiss, O.
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Development of a causally valid measure to assess sexual motivation. 32nd International Congress of Psychology, Prague, Czech Republic
Hinzmann, J., Khalaidovski, K., Bergmann, S., Braun, S., Brummer, J. & Schultheiss, O.
