ONTOGENESIS OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR 



1423 



'to lactation. Progestin and/or prolactin are 

 seen by Benedek as inducing not only so- 

 matic changes but also the "registering of 

 these changes in the psychic apparatus"; 

 she viewed motherliness as stemming from 

 the biologic effects and specific concomitants 

 of these hormones. Such a view cannot be 

 substantiated in the present state of knowl- 

 edge concerning the specificities of psycho- 

 logic-hormonal relationships. 



Levy (1942) attempted to tease out some 

 of the psychosomatic correlates of maternal 

 behavior. Based on interviews involving 

 much self -appraisal, his finding that there 

 is "a rather high and significant positive 

 correlation between maternal behavior and 

 duration of menstrual flow" (r = 0.579) 

 would have to be challenged on several 

 grounds, the most significant of which is 

 that the study on which the findings were 

 based did not include any direct observa- 

 tions of maternal behavior. A decade later 

 (Levy and Hess, 1952) Levy himself es- 

 tablished the lack of positive correlation 

 between interview and self-appraisal data 

 on the one hand and direct observational 

 ratings on the other. 



The ethologists, having identified seem- 

 ingly ready-made neurojjhysiologic path- 

 ways or releasing mechanisms for certain 

 social responses in lower animals, have sug- 

 gested that parental behavior can be viewed 

 in much the same light. Lorenz is quoted 

 by Tinbergen (1951) as considering that 

 "parental behavior, a subinstinct of the 

 major reproductive instinct, is responsive to 

 sign-stimuli provided by the human baby." 

 Although no controlled experimentation has 

 been done in this area, Lorenz suggested 

 that the human parental instinct, or IRM, 

 responds to the gestalt of (1) a short face 

 in relation to a large forehead, (2) ])rotrud- 

 ind cheeks, and (3) maladjusted limb move- 

 ments. Engaging though such a concept may 

 ])e, no one accjuainted with the complexity 

 of human psychologic development and 

 functioning would seriously embrace such 

 a view as adequately explaining the totality 

 of parental or maternal behavior. 



Without intending to oversimplify an ob- 

 viously complex feature of human behavior 

 the authors submit that parental behavior 

 may be considered to be a facet of and an 

 extension of gender role. Like the other as- 



pects of gender role that have been con- 

 sidered, parental role behavior does not re- 

 quire and is not dependent on innate 

 sex-specific mechanisms. That it is teleo- 

 logically purposive is fortuitous rather than 

 directly causal. Like other aspects of gender 

 role, parental behavior is accjuired largely 

 through a process of learning during child- 

 hood. Direct tuition, identification with 

 single or multiple parental models, rehears- 

 als through play and fantasy— all come to 

 be involved in the learning process. Like 

 other aspects of gender role, the acciuisition 

 of parental role behavior may go smoothly 

 and normally, or become disordered.^'* 



V. The Sexual Cycle in Women: 

 Psychosexual Concoinitants 



Cyclic variations in the sexual behavior 

 of lower mammals and infrahuman primates 

 as they relate to the hormonal events of the 

 reproductive cycle have received much at- 

 tention. Clearcut rhythms of heightened 

 sexual activity have been described in the 

 females not only of the lower mammalian 

 species but of monkeys and apes as well. 

 The occurrence of heightened sexual re- 

 sponsiveness and activity coinciding with 

 the follicular (high estrogen) phase of the 

 cycle in these subhuman species has been 

 viewed as biologically purposeful in that it 

 serves in the perpetuation of the species. 

 The quest for evidences of similar estral cor- 

 relates in the human female has been an in- 

 evitability. 



It is probably safe to say that in terms 

 of the complexity of motivation of behav- 

 ior Man presents a considerably wider range 

 of variables than any infrahuman species. 

 It has become apparent, even in infrahuman 

 species, however, that a single index, such as 

 coital frequency, is unsatisfactory in study- 

 ing over-all sexual behavior. 



In studying Man one difficulty has been 

 in getting agreement as to the components 

 encompassed by the totality of sexual be- 

 havior. A second difficulty has been the es- 



" A discussion of disordered parental beliavior 

 is beyond the scope of this chapter. Brief reference 

 here to "maternal overprotectiveness," "maternal 

 underprotectiveness" (see Levy, 1943), and to al- 

 legedly "schizophrenogenic" parental behavior 

 (Tietze, 1949: Reichard and Tillman, 1950) will 

 serve to illustrate the point. 



