Instructional control of an autonomic sexual response.
Plain spoken instructions can flip even automatic body responses, so use them first.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Seven adult men volunteered for a lab session.
The researcher said words like "get erect" or "go flaccid."
They measured penile response to see if words alone could control the reaction.
What they found
Every man raised or lowered arousal on command.
The change happened in seconds and reversed just as fast.
Words worked like a light switch for a private body event.
How this fits with other research
Frederiksen et al. (1978) later copied the idea with smoking.
They told adults to "take smaller puffs" and carbon-monoxide levels dropped in half.
Both studies show plain talk can steer hidden body processes.
Hall et al. (1968) did the same trick one year earlier in classrooms.
Teachers gave simple rules and kids’ study behavior jumped.
Same tool, different worlds: sex, smoke, and school.
Why it matters
If a one-sentence cue can move blood flow, it can move almost anything.
Try giving ultra-clear antecedent instructions before you prompt or reinforce.
State the exact response you want in plain verbs.
You may get faster, cleaner behavior change with less effort and fewer tokens.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Four of seven human male subjects developed full penile erections when exposed to erotically stimulating motion pictures. Changes in penile size were detected by a mercury strain gauge transducer and automatically recorded on a continuous paper record. When instructed to inhibit penile erection in the presence of such effective stimulus films, every subject was able to reduce his erection by at least 50%. This inhibition was apparent as long as the instructions were in effect; when the instructions were removed and the film reshown, the erection returned almost to its maximum state. This was true whether the films were presented as few as three or as many as nine times in succession. When instructed to develop an erection in the absence of a film, every subject was able to do so, each reaching a peak of about 30% of his maximum. Such erections had longer latencies to the peak produced and lower maximum levels than those elicited by a film.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1969 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1969.2-93