AUTHOR=Ferrey Anne E., Frischen Alexandra , Fenske Mark J.

TITLE=Hot or Not: Response Inhibition Reduces the Hedonic Value and Motivational Incentive of Sexual Stimuli

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2012

YEAR=2012

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00575

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00575

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=The motivational incentive of reward-related stimuli can become so salient that it drives behavior at the cost of other needs. Here we show that response inhibition applied during a Go/No-go task not only impacts hedonic evaluations but also reduces the behavioral incentive of motivationally-relevant stimuli. We first examined the impact of response inhibition on the hedonic value of sex stimuli associated with strong behavioral-approach responses (Experiment 1).  Sexually-appealing and non-appealing images were both rated as less attractive when previously encountered as No-go (inhibited) than as Go (non-inhibited) items. We then discovered that inhibition reduces the motivational incentive of sexual appealing stimuli (Experiment 2). Prior Go/No-go status affected the number of key-presses by heterosexual males to view erotic-female (sexually-appealing) but not erotic-male or scrambled-control (non-appealing) images. These findings may provide an important foundation for developing inhibition-based interventions to reduce the hedonic value and motivational incentive of stimuli associated with disorders of self-control.