A Lecture, What Motivates Us: Sex
This excerpt is from a Yale lecture by Prof. Paul Bloom of Yale lecture entitled What Motivates Us: Sex. This lecture is one in a series and part of Academic Earth, a website that presents lectures by recognized (and usually talented) academics. The lecture can be accessed through a video and a transcript.
"One is we don't actually spend that much time on sex. In fact, the four minutes and three seconds is an interesting number because when you do times studies on how much Americans spend filling out tax-related forms for the IRS, it's four minutes and a few seconds. But the passage also points out that regardless of the brute time we spend on it, it is extraordinarily important. Everything in life follows from it – marriage, family, children, much of aggression, much of competition, much of art and music and creative pursuits. Much of everything follows from it. If we were a creature without sex, everything would be different."
Lecture Description This lecture reviews what evolutionary theories and recent studies in psychology can tell us about sex and gender differences. Students will hear how psychology can help explain many of the differences that exist in whom we find attractive, what we desire in a mate, and sexual orientation.
Course Description
What do your dreams mean? Do men and women differ in the nature and intensity of their sexual desires? Can apes learn sign language? Why can’t we tickle ourselves? This course tries to answer these questions and many others, providing a comprehensive overview of the scientific study of thought and behavior. It explores topics such as perception, communication, learning, memory, decision-making, religion, persuasion, love, lust, hunger, art, fiction, and dreams. We will look at how these aspects of the mind develop in children, how they differ across people, how they are wired-up in the brain, and how they break down due to illness and injury.
Related Resources
Lecture Transcript and Reading AssignmentMore Articles
- Selective Exposure and Partisan Echo Chambers in Television News Consumption: Innovative Use of Data Yields Unprecedented Insights
- "Henry Ford Innovation Nation", a Favorite Television Show
- How Our Dreams Prepare Us to Face Our Fears: Tackling Anxiety-provoking Situations Once We're Awake
- Jo Freeman's Review of Michael Barone's How America’s Political Parties Change (And How They Don’t)
- Jo Freeman's Book Review of The Women’s Suffrage Movement by Sally Roesch Wagner
- Earnings for Full-time, Year-round workers: Women at Work From the US Census Bureau
- Memories of Seventies Dublin: As the Decade Moved On, the City Changed and We Were Changing With It; Not All Changes Were Welcome
- Revisiting Favorite Books: Kristin Lavransdatter, the Trilogy - The Wreath, The Mistress of Husaby and The Cross
- Reprise, Bobby Kennedy, The Train: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope"
- A Plea for Imagination: Once There Was a Time When It Was an Anomaly to See Gratuitous Brutality