Psychological Homosexuality

Psychologists, who once thought that homosexuality was a mental disease, have learned over the last few decades that it seems to be caused by either a nature or nurturing influence. As society expands its views to accept certain groups of people who were once viewed as maladapted, science has helped potentially discover scientific causes for the behavior. Looking at the articles presented it seems that there is much stronger evidence to support the nature or biological cause for homosexuality. One of the first psychological tests done on biological vs. environment was conducted by “Karen Hooker…to test for biological determinism in 1957, on a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health….The study was meant to explore the relationship between homosexuality and psychological development and illness. Hooker studied both homosexuals and heterosexuals. Both groups were matched for age, intelligence quotient (IQ) and education level, and were then subjected to three psychological tests.” (Johnson, 2003) After discovering that both groups were very similar, she concluded that there was “a zero correlation between social determinism of sexuality.” (Johnson, 2003) A much more recent study conducted at Stanford on lab rats looked into the neuroendocrine system, which is the system involving the hormones of the endocrine glands and the nervous system, and its affect on sexual orientation. “The neuroendocrine viewpoint 's basic hypothesis is that sexual orientation is determined by the early levels (probably prenatal) of androgen on relevant neural structures [7]. If highly exposed to these androgens, the fetus will become masculinized, or attracted to females…. Biological theorists have found substantial instances of anatomical, genetic, and endocrine evidence to support their argument.” (Johnson, 2003) The nurturing aspect looks at the side of homosexuality from the environmental influences that they place on a person. Of the recent environmental studies

References: Johnson, R.D. (2003). Homosexuality: Nature or Nurture. Allpsych Online. Retrieved from http://allpsych/journal/homosexuality.html Bower, B. (1996). From Exotic to Erotic Roots of sexual orientation found in personality, childhood friendships. Science News, 150(6), 88. Hockenbury, D., Hockenbury, S., Rea, C. (2010). Motivation and Emotion. (p.317-362)Jessica Bayne (Ed.) Discovering Psychology (5th ed). New York:Worth Publishers