A dual drive-source, multiple-drive model
We have considered some of the complexities involved in explaining sexual behaviour and relationships. These complexities have made it difficult to integrate theory and the wide-ranging focus of research relating to sexual behaviour and relationships. This section introduces a model designed to bring together the disparate issues and complexities confronting the psychologist when working with sexual behaviour and relationships. Figure 2.1 outlines this model, which provides a map to enable us to navigate our way.
There are several features to note in this model, which I explain more fully later. First, the subjective (top half in Figure 2.1) parallels the biological (bottom half in Figure 2.1) at all points of the sexual relationship process, from the initial drives to the relationship outcomes. Second, the decisional aspect (a part of the subjective self), prevents the model being a deterministic one. Third, there is an interactive dynamic between the subjective and biological aspects whereby each continually influences the other. Fourth, although interpersonal attraction, sexual desire, and sexual arousal generally interact, they can also act independently of each other. Fifth, while the drives and sociocultural scripts orient the circumstances of sexual behaviour (with whom, when, and where sexual behaviour might occur), sexual desire and arousal prime for actual expression of these drives: both aspects have a direct bearing on the sexual behaviour itself. Sixth, while the model has linear aspects, it also loops back so that the outcomes help shape the subsequent drive profile, maintaining consistency over time, as shown in Figure 2.2.
FIGURE 2.1
FIGURE 2.2
This diagram depicts a circular process, rather than the linear process that is typically shown to explain sexual behaviour. Here we see that each sexual encounter has outcomes that are integrated into our perceptual frameworks, helping shape the prevailing drive profile, which in turn plays a role in future sexual behaviour. The outcomes of sexual expression may be positive or negative, which has an activating or inhibiting effect for future sexual encounters. Relationship priming is here presented as preceding sexual priming, but of course such relationship priming may be minimal or even non-existent in some circumstances. Decisional aspects or the effects of the prevailing socio-cultural context are not shown here.
This model of the psychology of sexual behaviour is based on the idea that there are two drive sources that orient and energise the subjective self. There is a biological source that mostly involves neuroendocrine processes, and a subjective source that involves social and psychological motives. Each drive source represents a complex mix of dynamic forces, an ever-changing profile of drives, rather than a simple and stable force. The stability of the drive profile will vary between people: the strength of certain drives might fluctuate hourly while others are much more stable; the overall drive composition can also fluctuate over the lifespan. Nevertheless, this fluctuation is constrained by the drive to homeostasis and internal consistency.
Early theorists have described drives involving both biological and non-biological aspects.54 One of the ongoing debates in the literature concerning sexual behaviour is between the essentialists, who focus on biological explanations for sexual behaviours, and the social constructionists, who focus on sociological explanations for sexual behaviours:55 both aspects clearly play a role. Of course, neither tells the full story, and other theorists have argued for a more integrated dual-source model of sexual behaviour.56
My model distinguishes between natural laws and laws relating to the subjective self. The natural laws that comprise the world of science describe cause-and-effect relationships. However numerous and interactive the various natural factors acting upon something (think chemistry and physics), the combination of these factors will theoretically predict the outcome. If we can identify the strength of all relevant factors, we can accurately calculate the outcome. These factors are irresistible and inevitable, they can be measured and their action predicted: they just are. These cause-and-effect relationships remain true and unchanged, across time and across people. It is a closed and deterministic system. Scientific explanation is an explanation that describes events in terms of these cause-and-effect laws.
Psychological science, however, needs to deal with another dimension that interacts with natural laws and their inherent predictability: the dimension of the subjective self. This is the dimension of ideas, meanings, and reasoning, of decision-making and independent initiative. The laws it obeys are not the same as those of natural laws. It is no longer a closed and deterministic system. Rather than cause-and-effect, it is about subjective perceptions that form the basis for reasoning and action. It is about the purpose and function of behaviour — the intent and motives. The rules that govern these are not irresistible or inevitable as natural laws are, and they are not easily measured or accurately predicted. They have the capacity to change across time and across people. Nevertheless, they are not random or without reason. But the reason for such behaviour relates to subjective perceptions, prevailing emotions, and personal goals — behaviour is not just the inevitable outcome of prevailing forces; it can be said to have a purpose.
We might say there are natural laws and supernatural laws, in the sense that the latter deal with laws that may be superimposed upon the former natural laws. The natural laws are never suspended, but may be interfered with by ‘supernatural’ laws that govern the actions of the subjective self. And so the study of natural laws remains relevant in psychology. As human beings, we simultaneously inhabit bodies subject to natural cause-and-effect laws, and have minds that can make subjective decisions that ‘interfere’ with these natural laws, bringing about different outcomes. These, then, are reflected in the two drive sources, one obeying natural laws; the other obeying ‘supernatural’ laws. It is the ‘supernatural’ laws of the subjective self that submit to legal and moral considerations in a way that natural laws never could.57
In the present conceptualisation of a dual-drive model, the first drive source is neurobiological and governed by natural laws. That is, the drives involve the neuroendocrine system with its associated hormones, peptides, and neurotransmitters which either prime for and activate or inhibit sexual desire and sexual arousal. These drives originate from the chemistry of our biological selves and are sensitive to ever-changing neurobiological processes. They are affected by external environmental conditions (through classical conditioning) or by the internal physiological environment (including various mood and emotion states) and can fluctuate hourly, monthly, and more subtly over the lifespan. The classical conditioning processes relate to automatic associations the brain establishes with pleasure and pain, and which involve automatic physiological and behavioural responses, rather than ideas-related responses, and so are included under this umbrella. And although subjective ideas and perceptions can emerge from various mood or emotion states, the source of the idea or perception in such instance is the physiological event itself. Furthermore, genetic predispositions (including temperament) and diseases (such as diabetes, polycystic ovarian disease, and various psychiatric illnesses)