This review discusses the measurement, antecedents, and consequents of erotophobia‐erotophilia—the disposition to respond to sexual cues along a negative‐positive dimension of affect and evaluation. Test construction procedures which resulted in a 21‐item measure of this personality construct are reported. Evidence indicates that the measure is internally consistent, shows acceptable degrees of convergent and discriminant validity, and is correlated as expected with related constructs such as authoritarianism, adherence to traditional sex roles, indices of value orthodoxy, and various measures of sex‐related evaluations. Retrospective surveys and group contrasts suggest that erotophobia‐erotophilia is a learned disposition based on one's exposure to sex‐related restrictiveness and punishment during socialization. Consequents of erotophobia‐erotophilia involve avoidance versus approach responses to sexuality in a wide range of situations; scores on this test predict differential sexual experience, responses to erotica, likelihood of engaging in sexual fantasy behavior, the tendency to learn about or teach others about sex, engaging in sex‐related health care, the probability of utilizing contraception, and behaving sexually during pregnancy and postpartum. Cross‐cultural research provides evidence for the generality of this construct beyond North America.
Erotophobia‐erotophilia as a dimension of personality
Reprints and Corporate Permissions
Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?
To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:
Academic Permissions
Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?
Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:
If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.
Related Research Data
Related research
People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.
Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.
Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.