1428 



HORMONAL REGULATION OF BEHAVIOR 



ogy, disordered psychologic sex. As stated 

 earlier, however, to make such a statement 

 is not to endorse an oversimplified theory of 

 environmental determinism. The experiences 

 entering into social learning require the ac- 

 tive presence of a person — a person whose 

 body morphology, physiologic functioning 

 and cerebral and cognitional equipment are 

 the heritage of genetic factors.^" It can also 

 be allowed that some as yet unidentified in- 

 herited perceptual or cognitional factor may 

 reinforce or make it easier for disorders of 

 psychologic sex to evolve during the course 

 of a person's growing up. Nonetheless, life 

 experience and social learning must be ac- 

 corded an important place in the establish- 

 ment of psychologic sex, either ordered or 

 disordered, for the evidence militates too 

 strongly against a theory of innate, pre- 

 formed, and inherited behavioral impera- 

 tives, hormonal or otherwise. 



^"An important difficulty facing an investigator 

 of genetic factors in behavior is the one of know- 

 ing precisely what to look for. Such gross items as 

 "intelligence" or "over-all adaptability," although 

 much studied in the past, have proven inadequate 

 as measures of genie influence on behavior. The 

 work of such students of animal behavior as Lo- 

 renz, Beach, W. C. Young, J. P. Scott, Guhl, and 

 others, shows clearly that the problem is not as 

 simple as earlier believed. There seems to be gen- 

 eral agreement among such investigators that the 

 inherited aspects of a given type of behavior are 

 simple behavioral units often related to basic 

 physiologic and neurophysiologic processes; for 

 the human, at least, it is evident that such ana- 

 tomic considerations as body morphology must be 

 added. Lower animals displaj' different capacities 

 to learn and to respond emotionally and physio- 

 logically according to the nature of the stimulus; 

 such capacities are clearly related to genetic en- 

 dowment. An example is the finding by Scott and 

 Charles (1953, 1954) that the ease with which 

 beagles could be taught to track a rabbit, ter- 

 riers to fight, and spaniels to retrieve and socialize 

 could be broken down into a step-wise sequence 

 of learning processes. Scott (1953) suggested that 

 the study of genie influences on behavior is likely 

 to be most fruitful if approached in terms of these 

 smaller units or processes. In Scott's words: "A 

 gene can act only by modifying some physiologic 

 process, whether it be growth in the embryo or 

 pigment formation in the adult, and clear-cut 

 genetic results can be expected in the study of be- 

 havior only where a trait is measured which is 

 either a physiologic process or largely based on 

 one. If behavior is measured in terms of over-all 

 adjustment, dozens and even hundreds of physio- 

 logic processes are likely to be involved and these 

 may be organized so that a deficiency in one is 

 cancelled by an excess in another." 



B. HERMAPHRODITISM AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 



No one acquainted with Freudian libido 

 theory^" can fail to be aware that sexuality 

 in the broad sense conceived of by Freud 

 has been accorded a position of great im- 

 portance in theories concerning the origins 

 of psychiatric disorders. For some, the 

 libido theory constitutes an accepted psy- 

 chiatric doctrine despite the shaky assump- 

 tions (see Bieber, 1958) on which it is 

 based. ' ■ 



It was in these respects that the evidence 

 of human hermaphroditism was examined 

 by Money, Hampson and Hampson (1956). 

 Representing the several varieties of her- 

 maphroditism, 94 hermaphroditic patients 

 were studied psychologically and psychiatri- 

 cally, and their psychologic healthiness was 

 judged on a 4-point scale. Of the 94 patients, 

 63 were evaluated as healthy, 16 mildly 

 nonhealthy, 14 moderately nonhealthy, and 

 one, a mental defective, severely nonhealthy. 

 Functional psychosis was conspicuously ab- 

 sent in this group of hermaphroditic pa- 

 tients. In general their psychologic non- 

 healthiness was in the direction of excessive 

 inhiI)ition and rcs(M-ve. Commonly these pa- 



'■ Briefly, the libido theory (.see Freud, 1915) 

 assumes the existence of instinctive sexual forces 

 somehow related to "psychic energy" (a dubious 

 concept in any case) and ultimately responsible 

 for all behavior. Freud postulated an "ego" and a 

 "superego" as the psychic apparatus by which 

 libidinal energy is controlled and made socially 

 acceptable and useful. In elaborating his libido 

 theory, Freud envisioned a 3-stage process of psy- 

 chosexual development consisting of (1) an oral 

 stage related to later dependency relationships, (2) 

 an anal stage related to authority relationships, 

 and (3) a genital stage related to sexuality in the 

 genital erotic sense. P.sychopathologic states, he 

 postulated, were simply regressions to earlier stages 

 of psychosexual, or libidinal organization. Thus 

 Freud considered disordered sexuality, or more 

 precisely, disordered libido, as the primary or 

 basic cause for the neuroses and possibly other 

 psychologic conditions as well. Contrary to views 

 held by other scientists, psychoanalysis has classi- 

 cally held the position that all human emotion, 

 whether affection, warmth, aggression, or anger, 

 has its origins in sexuality as elastically encom- 

 passed by the libido theory. Bieber (1958) takes 

 to task those who anachronistically continue to 

 espouse such facile explanatory constructs: "Cur- 

 rent psychoanalytic thinking is infiltrated with 

 teleology. We are assigning purpose to behavior 

 facilely. ... A teleologic theory cannot account for 

 all psychologic mental functioning. It is inaccu- 

 rate and misleading." 



