Learning Approach to Human Sexuality
A learning approach to human sexuality
Main themes of the paper
Human sexuality plays a major role in everyone's life. Regardless, whether we are young or old, man or woman, South African or American, it is an integral part of what we do and who we are. There has been much done by way of research and scholarly writing examining human sexuality. The point here is that human sexuality, like us, is multi-dimensional and one can only begin to get a sense of what it is by the inclusion of many perspectives and ideas.
To what extent does adult sexual behavior reflect what was learnt in our childhood? Would you hold the same sexual attitudes and behaviors if you had been reared in another culture? Even within the same society, family and personal experiences can shape unique sexual attitudes and behaviors. Learning theory focuses on environmental factors that shape behavior. Within this context, learning theory examines the environmental factors that shape sexual behavior (McConaghy, 1987).
How are the ideas explored? Methodology/evidence of the argument
How is human behavior learned? Professor Nathaniel McConaghy’s explores the different positions that suggest that sexual behavior learned in childhood plays a major role in the development of adult sexual behavior.
In his examination of the theories developed in the studies of learning (humans and animals) Prof McConaghy looks at their position in relation to: * Is the aim of theory to explain the development of learning or control human behavior? * Is CNS and its properties important and is it involved in how learning occurs and in what is learned? * Do people/animals learn through individual responses to different stimuli or is it as a result of a global internalized representation of reality? * Can learning be established and continue/persist/endure without reinforcement? * Are there critical periods in childhood during which behavior once learned is unusually difficult to alter later in
Main themes of the paper
Human sexuality plays a major role in everyone's life. Regardless, whether we are young or old, man or woman, South African or American, it is an integral part of what we do and who we are. There has been much done by way of research and scholarly writing examining human sexuality. The point here is that human sexuality, like us, is multi-dimensional and one can only begin to get a sense of what it is by the inclusion of many perspectives and ideas.
To what extent does adult sexual behavior reflect what was learnt in our childhood? Would you hold the same sexual attitudes and behaviors if you had been reared in another culture? Even within the same society, family and personal experiences can shape unique sexual attitudes and behaviors. Learning theory focuses on environmental factors that shape behavior. Within this context, learning theory examines the environmental factors that shape sexual behavior (McConaghy, 1987).
How are the ideas explored? Methodology/evidence of the argument
How is human behavior learned? Professor Nathaniel McConaghy’s explores the different positions that suggest that sexual behavior learned in childhood plays a major role in the development of adult sexual behavior.
In his examination of the theories developed in the studies of learning (humans and animals) Prof McConaghy looks at their position in relation to: * Is the aim of theory to explain the development of learning or control human behavior? * Is CNS and its properties important and is it involved in how learning occurs and in what is learned? * Do people/animals learn through individual responses to different stimuli or is it as a result of a global internalized representation of reality? * Can learning be established and continue/persist/endure without reinforcement? * Are there critical periods in childhood during which behavior once learned is unusually difficult to alter later in