Examining the relationship between stress and sexual desire

Abstract

Stress affects many aspects of our health, including sexual health. Stress is often cited as a cause of low sexual desire; however, there is little research on the relationship between stress and sexual desire. In the present study, I examined how attention may impact this relationship using the dot probe task. I predicted that higher levels of stress would be associated with lower sexual desire, and this relationship would be mediated by attention to erotic and threat stimuli. Sexual desire was evaluated using newly developed vignettes to measure in-the-moment desire. These vignettes were validated in two pilot studies and the main study. Stress was measured using the self-report measures of perceived stress and daily stress. The dot probe task erotic images, angry faces (threat stimuli), and neutral stimuli were used in the dot probe task. Results showed that there was a positive relationship between perceived stress and sexual desire, but there were no associations between stress and response bias towards either threat or erotic stimuli. Vignette scores were moderately positively correlated with an established measure of sexual desire. Overall, this study validated a new measure of sexual desire and found a relationship between stress and sexual desire, but it was not mediated by attentional bias.