PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Understanding the Cognitive and Motivational Underpinnings of Sexual
Passion From a Dualistic Model
Frederick L. Philippe, Robert J. Vallerand, Léa Bernard-Desrosiers, Valérie Guilbault, and Guillaume RajotteThis document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

University of Quebec at Montreal
Sexual passion has always been conceptualized as a one-dimensional phenomenon that emerges frominteractions with partners. Drawing from the literature on passionate activities, sexual passion was
defined in terms of its intrapersonal motivational and cognitive components and examined from adualistic perspective. More specifically, in 5 studies, we investigated how 2 types of sexual passion,
harmonious and obsessive, can lead to clearly distinct subjective, relational, and cognitive outcomes.
Study 1 validated a scale measuring harmonious and obsessive sexual passion, and showed that each typeof sexual passion leads to common, but also distinct, subjective consequences during sexual activity
engagement for both singles and romantically engaged individuals. Studies 2 and 3 differentiated theconstructs of harmonious and obsessive sexual passion from competing constructs existing in theliterature and provided evidence for its predictive validity regarding various relational outcomes,
including relationship sustainability over time. Finally, Studies 4 and 5 investigated the cognitive
consequences of each type of sexual passion by showing how they reflect distinct levels of integrationof sexual and relational representations, and how they can lead to biased processing of sexual information(Study 4) and conflict with ongoing sex-unrelated goals (Studies 5a and 5b). Overall, the present seriesof studies provides a new look at sexual passion from a motivational and cognitive intrapersonal
perspective that is not restricted to interpersonal ramifications with partners.
Keywords: sexual passion, mental representations, romantic relationships, sexuality

can exist without passionate love, and passionate love is possible without sexual desire (Baumeister & Bratslavsky, 1999;
Diamond, 2003). In other words, sexual attraction and desire
are not synonymous with romantic love (Meyers & Berscheid,
1997). In order to take this distinction into account, Sternberg(1986) defined passion within relationships as a drive that leads
to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation, and related phenomena. He noted that passion could also exist in
nonloving relationships, such as in one-night stands or relationships with prostitutes, which most often involve a minimizationof intimacy and love (Sternberg, 1986). Other authors opted fora stricter definition of sexual passion, defined as an intense
physical attraction to a partner accompanied by intense emotional and sexual arousal (e.g., Davis, Shaver, & Vernon, 2004).
These definitions and conceptualizations share a common assumption: Sexual passion emerges from the interdependent dynamics experienced with a partner and typically follows a unidimensional continuum of intensity, ranging from high to low levels.
In the present article, we propose to revisit the basic personal
motivational and cognitive components of sexual passion andinvestigate how sexual passion takes its roots within (instead of
between) individuals. Based on passionate activities theories (e.g.,
Vallerand, 2015), we take the perspective that sexual passion is thefelt motivation that can lead one to engage in sexual activities that
may be performed individually or with one or more individuals. In
addition, we specify that two types of sexual passion exist, eachdeveloped from a specific cognitive organization that depends on

Sexual passion is usually recognized as an important componentof adult life and of romantic relationships (e.g., Granvold, 2001).
The term sexual passion may at first appear rather basic andstraightforward, as it is frequently used by laypeople. However, inpersonality and social psychology, sexual passion has often beenused interchangeably with terms such as passion, passionate love,sexual desire, or physical attraction. In addition, most authors havedefined it from an interpersonal perspective. One of the mostcommon definitions of passion in a romantic relationship comesfrom Hatfield, which she coined “passionate love” and defined
as a “state of intense longing for union with an other” (Hatfield& Walster, 1978, p. 9). Building on that definition, Vohs andBaumeister (2004) suggested that sexual passion is not stable,
but an ephemeral phenomenon that momentarily builds up
along increased feelings of intimacy (also see Sternberg, 1986,
on this topic). However, sexual desire and physical attraction

This article was published Online First December 12, 2016.
Frederick L. Philippe, Robert J. Vallerand, Léa Bernard-Desrosiers,
Valérie Guilbault, and Guillaume Rajotte, Department of Psychology,
University of Quebec at Montreal.
We would like to thank Serge Lecours for his comments on Study 4.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Frederick
L. Philippe, Department of Psychology, University of Quebec at Montreal,
P.O. Box 8888, Station Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3P8, Canada.
E-mail: philippe.frederick@uqam.ca

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2017, Vol. 113, No. 5, 769 –785
© 2016 American Psychological Association 0022-3514/17/$12.00
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000116

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PHILIPPE ET AL.

how sexual representations have been internalized, and each leading to dramatically different subjective, relational, and cognitive
consequences. This distinct conceptualization provides a more
fundamental understanding of the motivational and cognitive underpinnings of sexual passion, while still addressing how passionate romantic love with a partner can emerge. It also extends theclassical single-dimension conceptualization of passion by introducing that two types of passion exist.

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From Passion for Activities to Sexual Passion:
A Dualistic ModelIn the literature on passionate activities, passion is defined using
affective, cognitive, and behavioral criteria. To be passionate about anactivity entails that the person has a high inclination toward engaging
in the activity and experiences a strong positive emotional connection
with the activity. Cognitively, the person highly values and finds
engaging in the activity important. Finally, passion leads people topurse the activity with energy on a long-term basis (Vallerand, 2010).
Passion can therefore be defined as a strong inclination for a selfdefining activity that one loves and highly values, and to which one
devotes time and energy (Vallerand, 2010; Vallerand et al., 2003). For
instance, passion for an activity, such as playing the guitar, is a strong
motivational inclination toward playing the guitar that one loves to do,that is important, and to which one devotes time and energy. Thus,
passion is the motivational component leading one to engage in the
beloved activity (guitar playing) whose form may differ (i.e., solitary
vs. dyadic or in a group).
We suggest that the same conceptualization can be applied to thesphere of sexuality because a sexual passion should be reflected bypeople’s strong emotional connection with sex, high valuation of it,
and frequent engagement in sexual activities. Sexual passion cantherefore be defined according to the same criteria, that is, as loving
sex, valuing it, and as spending a significant amount of time andenergy in various sex-related activities. Some people may have astronger inclination toward sexuality than others, and people may
engage in sexual activities alone, with a long-term partner, only oncewith a partner, or have several partners at the same time. These
instances are all representative of behaviors that are energized or
motivated by sexual passion. Sexual passion is therefore a specificperson-sexuality interface that is unique to each person (Vallerand,2015). This definition of passion permits description of the concept ofsexual passion in terms of a motivational drive that can vary inintensity, that is not restricted to the interpersonal ramifications occurring with a partner, and that can lead to various kinds of behaviors,
including both sexual and relational behaviors, but also nonpartnered
sexual behaviors.
The literature on passionate activities has also highlighted that
two types of passion exist— harmonious and obsessive passion(Vallerand, 2015; Vallerand et al., 2003). In both cases, people are
passionate for their activity as per the criteria defined above.
However, harmonious passion comes from an autonomous internalization of the activity (Vallerand, 2015). Such an internalization
takes place when the person has freely chosen and internalized thenorms, values, and beliefs related to the passionate activity in a
way that is well integrated and in harmony with the person’s otherself-aspects (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Vallerand et al., 2003). In thecase of sexuality, the person would have chosen to internalize thenorms, values, and scripts related to sexuality that fit his or her

broader self, such as what type of sexual activities should beengaged in, how they should be performed, and how sexuality
should be expressed and should define oneself. As a consequence,
the aspects of the activity can be well integrated and are inharmony with the other self-aspects of the person. Individuals witha harmonious sexual passion (HSP) therefore have mental representations about sexuality that are complexly intertwined and wellintegrated with other related self-aspects and life spheres, such as
relational self-aspects (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007).
Such a mental organization leads to important subjective, relational, and cognitive consequences. Because of its important integration with other types of mental representations, whenever external stimuli activate a sexual representation, the activation canfreely spread to a large number of other nonsexual representations
and engage complex and rich systems of goals (Kruglanski et al.,2002), which can potentially attenuate the strength of activation
through a fan effect (Anderson, 1983). Sexuality is therefore
subjectively experienced as integrated, thereby creating minimal
conflict with other self-aspects and life spheres. Individuals with
HSP can therefore fully engage in their passionate activity withflexibility and in an open, nonconflicting, and nondefensive way,
which facilitates positive cognitive and affective experiences during the activity. Sexuality therefore contributes to the experienceof positive sexual outcomes, such as sexual satisfaction, but also to
the development of constructive relational outcomes should thesexual activities be engaged with others (Vallerand, 2015).
Conversely, an obsessive passion comes from a controlled internalization of the passionate activity, which occurs when norms,
beliefs, values, and contingencies related to the activity have been
imposed on the person by the social environment and are not fully
self-endorsed. Therefore, these contingencies cannot be well integrated with the person’s other self-aspects and, as a consequence,
they remain in isolated cognitive networks, detached from more
complex and integrated networks of the integrated self. Whenobsessive sexual passion (OSP) is at play, whenever a sexual
representation is activated, the activation mostly spreads to othersexual representations. Activation therefore remains circumscribedto limited mental areas with strong activation strength (Anderson,1983), which only engage sexual-related goals (Kruglanski et al.,2002), which are likely to lead one to seek immediate satisfaction.
This prevents delay of gratification and engages little inhibitory
processes when situations would require them to be in operation.
Consequently, sexuality is subjectively experienced as imposing
itself on the person, which is felt as an internal pressure to engage
in the beloved activity. Although people love engaging in theactivity, they cannot engage in their passionate activity with flexibility and full openness, which limits the range of positive cognitive and affective experiences during the activity and can evenlead to the experiences of negative emotions (Philippe, Vallerand,
Houlfort, Lavigne, & Donahue, 2010). Because only sexual representations are mobilized whenever one is triggered, situations
that only allude to sexuality are inexorably perceived as fully
sexual. The mere presence of sexual stimuli should therefore bias
judgment and information processing and disrupt attention, therefore conflicting with ongoing goals, and lead to rumination andintrusive sexual thoughts (Vallerand et al., 2003) and conflict withother life spheres (Houlfort, Philippe, Vallerand, & Ménard, 2014;
Vallerand, Paquet, Philippe, & Charest, 2010).

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DUALISTIC MODEL OF SEXUAL PASSION

Research on passionate activities in general has developed ascale assessing harmonious and obsessive passion, and has supported its factorial structure and shown its invariance as a functionof language (French and English), gender, and types of activity(e.g., Marsh et al., 2013; Vallerand, 2015). Harmonious and obsessive passions are typically weakly positively correlated witheach other (Marsh et al., 2013). This is because passion is not an
all-or-none process. People can have internalized most of the
aspects of an activity in an autonomous fashion (e.g., sexuality
with a partner), although some might have been internalized in acontrolled way (e.g., pornography), leading to a predominant harmonious passion, which can still exhibit some obsessive-like behaviors whenever the more controlled aspects are triggered. Research has also shown that harmonious passion is predicted by ageneral autonomous internalization, that is, with a typically autonomous way of internalizing tasks and activities in general, whereas
an obsessive passion is determined by a general controlled internalization (Vallerand, Rousseau, Grouzet, Dumais, & Grenier,
2006; see also Vallerand, 2015). In addition, harmonious passion
typically leads people to experience flow (Mageau, Vallerand,
Rousseau, Ratelle, & Provencher, 2005; Vallerand et al., 2003) andpositive emotions (Philippe et al., 2010; Przybylski, Weinstein,
Ryan, & Rigby, 2009) during activity engagement, and facilitates
engagement in the passionate activity with flexibility and in a
nondefensive way (Vallerand et al., 2003). Conversely, with obsessive passion, activity engagement is characterized by the experience of some positive emotions, such as pride and excitement(Vallerand et al., 2008), and some flow (Mageau et al., 2005), butalso negative emotions (Philippe et al., 2010; Vallerand et al.,2006), ill-advised behaviors during the activity (Rip, Fortin, &Vallerand, 2006; Vallerand et al., 2003, 2008), aggression (e.g.,
toward other players in passion for basketball [Donahue, Rip, &Vallerand, 2009], and toward other drivers in passion for driving[Philippe, Vallerand, Richer, Vallières, & Bergeron, 2009]), andruminations and intrusive thoughts related to the activity (Forest,
Mageau, Sarrazin, & Morin, 2011; Vallerand et al., 2008).

Related Constructs
Passion extends self-determination theory and the concept of selfdetermined motivation, in that two qualitatively distinct types ofenjoyable and intrinsic engagements are posited in the dualistic modelof passion (Vallerand, 2015), whereas self-determination theory proposes that all intrinsically interesting activities are internalized thesame way, in an autonomous fashion (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Further,although passion for an activity is, by definition, important for the
person, intrinsic motivation may be important or not (see Vallerand,2015). Finally, contrary to self-determination theory, one type of
intrinsic engagement (obsessive passion) is expected to, and has beenfound to, lead to negative outcomes. Passion also differs from extrinsic motivation, as the latter refers to the motivation to engage innonenjoyable activities (Deci & Ryan, 2000), whereas passion involves activities that the person deeply loves and finds intrinsicallyenjoyable. Empirical investigations have also consistently shown that
passion and self-determined motivation, although correlated, are two
distinct constructs with unique predictive value (e.g., Houlfort et al.,2014; Vallerand et al., 2003).
Passion is also distinct from sexual desire or sexual drive. First,
people with high sexual desire may or may not enjoy sex, find it

771

important, or engage frequently in sexual activities (Baumeister,
Catanese, & Vohs, 2001; Levine, 2003). Thus, although highsexual desire probably facilitates the development of a sexualpassion, there is no full overlap between those constructs. Second,
we suggest that two types of sexual passion exist, whereas sexualdesire has always been defined as a one-dimensional continuum.
For instance, Levine (2003) defines passion as residing at the highend of a continuum of sexual desire. Sex researchers have considered a distinction between solitary and dyadic forms of sexualdesire (e.g., Goldey & van Anders, 2012), but we suggest that bothtypes of sexual passion can be expressed with a partner or not, andthat both rather emerge from an intrapersonal drive.
Finally, from a clinical perspective, sexual compulsivity, defined as repetitive, continued sexual behaviors that cause clinicaldistress and impairment, is not sexual passion (Kafka, 2010),
which implies frequent engagement in sexual activities but notdistress. Both HSP and OSP are rather expected to be associatedwith an enjoyment of sexual activities, whereas sexual compulsivity should not. The notion of sexual compulsivity is still a muchdebated issue, with some even questioning its existence (e.g.,
Steele, Staley, Fong, & Prause, 2013). We believe that if frequent
sexual engagement does not cause marked distress, but rather
pleasure and enjoyment, then it is not compulsivity, and it is sexualpassion— either HSP or OSP. Furthermore, the present dualistic
model of passion provides a strong theoretical model to explain thedevelopment and origins of a sexual passion, whereas writings on
sexual compulsivity have remained fairly atheoretical. In sum, ourconception of sexual passion is novel and distinct from otherrelated existing constructs.1 In the present article, we provide
empirical evidence for the discriminant validity of sexual passion
with respect to several other constructs.

The Present Research
Drawing from research on passionate activities (Vallerand, 2010,2015), the overarching purpose of the present research was to investigate a dualistic model of sexual passion and its subjective, relational,
and cognitive consequences. Such a model focuses on the motivational and cognitive underpinnings of two different types of sexualpassion, namely, HSP and OSP. Further, the model posits that sexualpassion can be experienced either as a single or in a romantic couple,
and thus can lead to both intra- and interpersonal outcomes. Finally,in line with the dualistic model of passion, it is hypothesized that HSP
typically leads to more adaptive outcomes than OSP. To achieve thispurpose, the present article reports the results of five studies thatsought to test the basic premise of the model and the consequences ofeach type of sexual passion on subjective, relational, and cognitive
consequences. More specifically, three objectives are sought in thepresent research within five studies:1.

Develop a dualistic Sexual Passion Scale derived frompast research on passionate activities and examine thesubjective consequences of each type of passion during
sexual activity engagement (Study 1).

1
There is also empirical evidence showing that sexual passion differsfrom all those other constructs. Contact the first author for the detailed
results.

PHILIPPE ET AL.

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772
2.

Examine the convergent and discriminant validity of adualistic model of sexual passion, compared with various
existing constructs in the literature, in predicting important relational consequences (Study 2), including relationship sustainability over time (Study 3).

3.

Investigate the cognitive consequences of each type of
passion, including the cognitive organization of theirsexual mental representations. Accordingly, Study 4 will
test the cognitive organization underlying each type of
passion by examining the level at which sexual representations are integrated with relational representations.
Studies 4 and 5 will also investigate the distinct cognitive
consequences of each type of passion in biasing information processing (Study 4) and conflicting with sexunrelated goals (Studies 5a and 5b).

Study 1: On the Construct of Sexual Passion
A primary purpose of Study 1 was to test the validity of theconstruct of sexual passion from a dualistic perspective. We firstdeveloped a scale to assess both types of sexual passion and examined
its factorial validity as well as its invariance with respect to gender andrelationship status (single or in a couple). Past research on the Passion
Scale has shown an invariance of the scale with respect to gender(Marsh et al., 2013). However, studies have consistently shown thatmales report a higher sex drive than females (e.g., Baumeister et al.,2001). Therefore, it seemed fair to also expect a gender difference on
the construct of sexual passion. Invariance was expected for relationship status, as we hypothesized that our concept of sexual passion
exists at an intrapersonal level and that having a partner is not a sinequa non condition to express sexual passion.
A secondary purpose of Study 1 was to test how each type of
passion relates to the passion criteria and to various intrapersonal
subjective states experienced during sexual activities. The two
types of sexual passion (i.e., harmonious and obsessive) werehypothesized to correlate similarly with the passion criteria ofloving sex, valuing it, and spending time and energy on sexual
activities (Vallerand et al., 2003). In addition, each type of passion
should be leading to some common, but also distinct, intrapersonal
subjective consequences. In line with past research on passionate
activities (Vallerand, 2015), because HSP reflects a strong integration of sexuality in the person’s self, it was hypothesized thatsexual activities should be experienced with a sense of volition,
which should be associated with a wide range of positive emotional and cognitive experiences, such as positive emotions andarousal, flow, and sexual satisfaction. Conversely, because OSP
represents a weak integration of sexuality in the broader self, thisshould orient the person only toward immediate satisfaction of thesex drive. OSP should therefore be associated with high arousal
states and some flow, but also with negative emotions. In addition,
the restrained set of mental representations activated under OSP
and lack of inhibitory processes triggered should create persistentintrusive thoughts about sexuality at irrelevant moments. Suchshould not be the case for HSP.

MethodParticipants and procedures. Participants were 639 undergraduate and graduate students (442 females, 197 males). Theirmean age was 24.91 years (SD ⫽ 5.46). They were invited toparticipate in an online study on the topic of sexuality in exchange
for being entered into a drawing for one of three prizes of $125.
Measures.
Sexual Passion Scale. The Passion Scale (Marsh et al., 2013;
Vallerand, 2010; Vallerand et al., 2003) assesses the type of
passion that characterizes people’s engagement in a specific passionate activity. The Passion Scale is highly flexible, as the word
“activity” in the various items can be replaced by basically any
specific activity (see Marsh et al., 2013). In addition, shorter
versions of the scale, such as a six-item version of the scale (three
items for each subscale), have been used with much success (seeLafrenière, Vallerand, Donahue, & Lavigne, 2009; Vallerand etal., 2007). In the present research, we used a short six-item scale,and the word “activity” was replaced with the word “sex.” The
three items measuring HSP were “Sex is in harmony with the otherthings that are part of me,” “Sex is well integrated in my life,” and“Sex is in harmony with the other activities in my life.” The three
items measuring OSP were “I have almost an obsessive feeling forsex,” “Sex is the only thing that really turns me on,” and “I havethe impression that sex controls me.” The items of this scale andthose of all other scales presented below (except when mentioned
otherwise) were responded to on a 7-point Likert scale (1 ⫽strongly disagree, 7 ⫽ strongly agree). Alphas in this study were
.82 and .83 for HSP and OSP, respectively.
Passion criteria. In the literature on passionate activities,
three criteria have been identified to determine whether a person is
passionate for a given activity (Marsh et al., 2013; Vallerand et al.,2003). We adapted these criteria to assess participants’ level ofsexual passion, that is, how much they like or love the activity (“Ilove sex”), value it (“Sex is important for me”), and invest timeand energy in it (“I spend a significant amount of time engaging invarious sexual activities”). Alpha for these items was .82. As such,the passion criteria assess the intensity of the sexual passion andthe passion scale assesses the extent to which this sexual passionis harmonious or obsessive.
Emotions. Participants were asked to rate to what extent theyusually experience each of 13 positive and negative emotions
while they engage in sex-related activities (e.g., solitary masturbation, sexual intercourse). Items for positive emotions were enthusiastic, happy, joyful, amused, and in a good mood (␣ ⫽ .90).
Items for the subscale of negative emotions were angry, guilty,
anxious, shy, and disgusted (␣ ⫽ .72). Three items measuring highpositive arousal states inspired by the Affective Sexual Arousal
scale (Mosher, Barton-Henry, & Green, 1988), and adapted to tap
into positive high level of arousal when engaging in sex-related
activities, were used: highly excited, on a high, and I trip hard(␣ ⫽ .86).
Flow. Seven items from the Flow State Scale (Jackson &Eklund, 2002; Jackson & Marsh, 1996) were used in this study toassess participants’ flow experience when engaging in sex-related
activities (e.g., “I have total concentration”). These flow items
were chosen because they could apply to sexual activities without
being modified. Cronbach’s Alpha in this study was .80.
Sexual satisfaction. One item used in past research (BeaulieuPelletier, Philippe, Lecours, & Couture, 2011) was used to assessparticipants’ current sexual satisfaction (“To what extent are you
currently sexually satisfied in your life?”). This item was re-DUALISTIC MODEL OF SEXUAL PASSION

sponded to on a 5-point Likert scale (1 ⫽ not satisfied at all, 5 ⫽totally satisfied).
Intrusive sexual thoughts. Three items devised for the purpose of the present study measured the extent to which participants
had intrusive thoughts related to sexuality (e.g., “I think about sex
at times when I should not”). Alpha was .68.2

Table 1Means, Standard Deviations, and Zero-Order Correlations
Between Sexual Passion and Passion Criteria, Emotions, Flow,
Sexual Satisfaction, and Intrusive Sexual Thoughts: Study 1
Sexual passion
Variables

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Results and Discussion
Structural validity of the Sexual Passion Scale. A CFA was
conducted using Mplus 7 to examine the factorial structure of thescale. The model was composed of two latent variables (HSP and
OSP), each composed of three observed variables (i.e., items). Fit
indices for this model were adequate, Satorra-Bentler ␹2(8) ⫽24.52, p ⬍ .01; comparative fit index (CFI) ⫽ .99, root meansquare error of approximation (RMSEA) ⫽ .057 90% CI [.032,.083], standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) ⫽ .034.
Factor loadings ranged from .71 to .90. An alternative one-factor
model was also tested, but was revealed to be clearly inadequate,
Satorra-Bentler ␹2(9) ⫽ 730.59, p ⬍ .000, CFI ⫽ .48, RMSEA ⫽.35, SRMR ⫽ .22. Invariance of the scale was tested as a functionof relational status and gender. Results showed full configural andmetric invariance as a function of relational status—the full fixedmodel was not significantly different than the loadings-free model,⌬␹2(6) ⫽ 9.75, ns. As for gender, configural invariance was found,but not full metric invariance (i.e., factor loadings not invariant)—
the loadings-free model, ␹2(16) ⫽ 35.09, being significantly different than the full-fixed model, ␹2(22) ⫽ 79.67, with a significant
chi-square difference of ⌬␹2(6) ⫽ 44.58, p ⬍ .01. Further examination of the items revealed that two items differed as a functionof gender: Items 2 and 3 of the OSP subscale. The variances ofthese items were higher for males than for females. However,given that their standard errors were also larger for males, theirstandardized loadings were almost equivalent (Item 2 ⫽ .78 vs. 89,
Item 3 ⫽ .83 vs. .84, for females and males, respectively), and both
remained high and significant. The other items were invariant
when compared with a model with partial metric invariance (H␭,2
OSP2–OSP3), ⌬␹ (4) ⫽ 4.68, ns.
Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and zero-ordercorrelations among each type of passion and the measured outcomes. Separate factorial ANOVAs with Gender and Relational
Status as factors, and each type of passion as the dependent
variable, were conducted to examine whether passion would differ
as a function of these factors. Results revealed that males (M ⫽3.02, SD ⫽ 1.39) reported a higher level of OSP than females(M ⫽ 1.99, SD ⫽ 1.03), F(1, 635) ⫽ 82.36, p ⬍ .001, d ⫽ .88.
There was no gender difference on HSP. Passion also differed asa function of relational status. Participants in a relationship reported a higher level of HSP (M ⫽ 5.44, SD ⫽ 1.26) than singles(M ⫽ 4.98, SD ⫽ 1.34), F(1, 635) ⫽ 17.46, p ⬍ .001, d ⫽ .37.
There was also a marginally significant difference between participants in relationships (M ⫽ 2.19, SD ⫽ 1.22) and singles (M ⫽2.56, SD ⫽ 1.28) on OSP, F(1, 635) ⫽ 3.84, p ⫽ .051. There wereno significant Gender ⫻ Relational Status interactions.
Subjective consequences of each type of sexual passion.
Correlational results unveiled that the two types of sexual passion
were uncorrelated with each other (p ⫽ .16). In addition, bothtypes of passion were positively and strongly correlated with thepassion criteria, suggesting that each type of sexual passion is

773

M

SD

HSP

OSP

Harmonious passion(HSP)
5.30 1.30——
Obsessive passion (OSP) 2.31 1.25 ⫺.06 (⫺.36ⴱⴱ)Passion criteria
4.96 1.13
.53ⴱⴱ
.41ⴱⴱ
.02 (⫺.26ⴱⴱ)
Positive emotions
5.64 .99.50ⴱⴱ (.36ⴱⴱ)High arousal states
4.90 1.30.36ⴱⴱ (.35ⴱⴱ).30ⴱⴱ (.26ⴱⴱ)Negative emotions
1.83 .66 ⫺.36ⴱⴱ (⫺.33ⴱⴱ).16ⴱⴱ (.26ⴱⴱ)Flow
4.50 1.09.34ⴱⴱ (.22ⴱⴱ).12ⴱⴱ (⫺.03)
Sexual satisfaction
3.56 1.10.42ⴱⴱ (.38ⴱⴱ)⫺.07ⴱⴱ (⫺.19ⴱⴱ)
Intrusive sexual thoughts 2.31 1.21 ⫺.11ⴱⴱ (⫺.32ⴱⴱ).57ⴱⴱ (.49ⴱⴱ)Note. n ⫽ 639. All measures were assessed with a Likert scale from 1 to
7, except sexual satisfaction, which ranged from 1 to 5. Partial correlations,controlling for passion criteria, are shown in parentheses. Dash ⫽ association between these variables was not measured.
ⴱⴱp ⬍ .01.

orthogonal to the other, with both corresponding to what characterizes a passion. Each type of passion also led to distinct subjective consequences. In line with research on passionate activities,
HSP was positively associated with positive emotions, higharousal states, flow, and sexual satisfaction, and negatively associated with negative emotions and intrusive sexual thoughts. Conversely, OSP was positively associated with high arousal states andweakly with flow, but not with positive emotions and sexual
satisfaction, but positively associated with negative emotions andintrusive thoughts. Table 1 also shows the partial correlations
among HSP and OSP and these subjective outcomes, controlling
for the passion criteria. Almost all correlations were unaltered bycontrolling for passion criteria, therefore suggesting that the specific type of sexual passion that people hold has important consequences for the way sexuality is experienced, beyond the strengthof one’s passion.
Moderators. Using multiple regression analyses, we examined whether the relationships between sexual passion and theoutcomes would be moderated by gender or by relational status(single or in relationship). There were only two findings moderated
by gender. The relationships between OSP and intrusive sexual
thoughts and high arousal states were slightly more positive forfemales (␤ ⫽ .58, p ⬍ .001, and ␤ ⫽ .37, p ⬍ .001, respectively)
than for males (␤ ⫽ .39 and ␤ ⫽ .16, ps ⬍ .01). One finding wasmoderated by relational status. OSP was slightly more associatedwith high arousal states for participants in relationships (␤ ⫽ .34,
p ⬍ .001) than those who were single (␤ ⫽ .19, p ⬍ .01). In allcases, however, the relationship between OSP and these outcomesremained significant. Taken together, the present findings provide
support for a dualistic perspective of sexual passion from an
intrapersonal perspective, in that sexual passion (and the type of
passion) matters for individuals that are single or in a relationship.
2
Attachment was also measured in this study, but even after controllingfor its effect, results remained significant. It is therefore not presented in
the Results section because of space constraints.

PHILIPPE ET AL.

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Study 2: Discriminant and Predictive Validity
The findings of Study 1 revealed that the two types of passion
predicted different types of intrapersonal outcomes. The purposeof Study 2 was to investigate the discriminant and predictive
validity of the two types of sexual passion on relational consequences compared with related existing constructs in the literature.
Three of these constructs have been selected because they areclosely related to each type of passion investigated in the present
article: (a) sociosexuality, which is defined as an individual difference in the willingness to engage in casual sex or in sex withoutlove (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991); (b) a measure of relationalpassion tapping into the classical interpersonal definition of sexualpassion examined in the introduction of this article, which reflects
passionate love and/or physical attraction to a partner (Hatfield &Sprecher, 1986); and (c) trait self-control, which typically facilitates the inhibition of inappropriate sexual thoughts and helps
resisting sexual temptation (e.g., Gailliot & Baumeister, 2007).
In OSP, sexuality is experienced as imposing on the person. Therefore, OSP is posited to lead to less control over one’s sexual passion
than HSP. However, these aspects of control should only apply to thesphere of sexuality and should not reflect general abilities of selfcontrol, as assessed by a measure of trait self-control. Therefore, we
did not make a specific hypothesis for how each type of sexualpassion would relate to self-control. However, we hypothesized thatboth types of passion would be positively correlated, but no more thanmoderately, with relational passion (attraction toward one’s partner)
and to sociosexuality. Note that sociosexuality does not measure apreference for sex without love over sex in committed relationships,
but only openness to it. Therefore, both types of sexual passion were
expected to be related to sociosexuality.
The predictive validity of the two types of sexual passion wastested with respect to four relational outcomes: (a) relationshipquality, (b) attentiveness to alternatives, (c) conflicting sexuality,and (d) aggression in response to a relational threat. We examinedthese associations while controlling for the three related constructs
presented above (sociosexuality, relational passion, and selfcontrol). Given the greater integration of sexuality that takes placewith HSP, notably within the relational sphere, we expected HSP,
but not OSP, to be positively associated with relationship quality.
However, the poorer integration reflected in OSP should create
more conflict between sex and other life spheres, and a greaterdifficulty to control one’s attention to alternative partners whenengaged in a relationship. Finally, based on past research showingthat obsessive passion leads to more aggression than HSP during
activity engagement (Philippe et al., 2009), particularly underself-threat conditions (Donahue et al., 2009), we expected OSP to
be associated with violent/aggressive actions when facing relationship threats, such as situations triggering jealousy, but not HSP.

MethodParticipants and procedures. Participants were 165 undergraduate and graduate students (134 females, 31 males), of which
106 were currently in a romantic relationship. Mean age was 24.53
years (SD ⫽ 5.60 years). Singles did not complete the scales ofrelational passion, attentiveness to alternatives, perceived relationship quality, and reactions to relational threats.

Measures. The Sexual Passion Scale was used again in thisstudy. Alphas were .91 and .69 for HSP and OSP, respectively.
Control variables.
Self-control. The Brief Self-Control Scale (Tangney,
Baumeister, & Boone, 2004) was used to assess self-control. This
scale is composed of 13 items responded to on a 7-point Likert
scale format (1 ⫽ do not agree at all, 7 ⫽ very strongly agree).
This Likert scale format was used for all other measures described
below. Alpha was .75 in this study.
Sociosexuality. The revised sociosexual orientation inventory(Penke & Asendorpf, 2008) was used to assess sociosexuality.
This nine-item scale measures willingness to engage in casual or
uncommitted sexual relationships. Alpha was .81.
Relational Passion Scale. Yela (2006) developed an Erotic
Passion Scale based on several other passion scales—Sternberg’s
Passion Scale (Sternberg, 1986), the Physiological Arousal Scale(Critelli, Myers, & Loos, 1986), di Fraia’s Passion Scale (di Fraia,
1991), and the Passionate Love Scale (Hatfield & Sprecher,1986)—retaining the items pertaining to physical factors andarousal. Through factor analyses, he selected the five items withthe maximum saturation, minimum saturation on other factors, andmaximum correlation with their factor. Sample items include “Ifind myself very sexually aroused when I kiss my partner” and “Ifeel my body responds when my partner touches me.” In thepresent study, we labeled this scale Relational Passion to clearly
distinguish it from the Sexual Passion Scale. Alpha was .90.
Relational outcomes.
Perceived relationship quality. Relationship quality was assessed with the seven-item Perceived Relationship Quality Components Inventory (PRQC; Fletcher, Simpson, & Thomas, 2000a).
This measure assesses six components of romantic relationships(satisfaction, commitment, intimacy, trust, passion, and love), eachwith one item. In addition, a Romance subscale was also measured
with one more item, in line with Fletcher, Simpson, and Thomas’s(2000b) further expansion of the PRQC. Alpha was .82.
Attentiveness to alternatives. Attention to alternative partners
was assessed with the Attentiveness to Alternatives Index (Miller,
1997). This scale, composed of six items, assesses the extent towhich participants are alert to other potential partners. Sample
items include “I am distracted by other people that I find attractive” or “I rarely notice other good-looking or attractive people”(reverse-scored). Alpha was .71.
Sex conflict. A short three-item scale adapted from Vallerandet al. (2003, Study 1) was devised for the purpose of the present
study to assess participants’ conflict between sex and other aspectsof their life (e.g., “My sexuality conflicts with other aspects of mylife”). Alpha was .53.
Reactions to relational threats. We presented the participants
with a scenario drawn from Dijkstra and Buunk (1998) in which
their current partner is flirting with a member of the opposite sex:
You are at a party with your girlfriend [boyfriend] and you aretalking with some of your friends. You notice your girlfriend[boyfriend] across the room talking to a man [woman] you do not
know. You can see from his [her] face that he [she] is very
interested in your girlfriend [boyfriend]. He [She] is listening
closely to what she [he] is saying and you notice that he [she]casually touches her [his] hand. You notice that he [she] is flirtingwith her [him]. After a minute, your girlfriend [boyfriend] also
begins to act flirtatiously. You can tell from the way she [he] isDUALISTIC MODEL OF SEXUAL PASSION

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looking at him [her] that she [he] likes him [her] a great deal. They
seem completely absorbed in each other.
Participants were instructed to imagine experiencing this situation with their current partner and to imagine their reactions withrespect to their partner and to the other person in the scenario andhow they (participants) would feel. They were then presented with
13 attitudes and behaviors, of which five included physical andverbal violence actions (e.g., “I would yell at my partner,” “Iwould hit the person flirting with my partner”; ␣ ⫽ .92). Other
filler items measured partner distrust (e.g., “I would question thetrustworthiness of my partner”) and communicative actions (e.g.,“I would discuss this situation with my partner afterward”).

775

Because OSP is characterized by a weak integration of sexual
representations with other self-aspects, OSP should be conducive
to poor relational consequences over time, and eventually lead tothe dissolution of the relationship. Conversely, because HSP ischaracterized by a greater integration of sexual representations,notably with relational representations, this type of sexual passion
is more likely to lead to adaptive and constructive relational
outcomes over time, which should prevent breakup and help sustain the relationship over time. Therefore, we predicted that OSP
would increase the likelihood of union dissolution over time,
whereas HSP would not. We also hypothesized that this result
should hold after controlling for the other control explanatory
variables and relationship quality measured at Time 1.

Results and Discussion
Regression analyses were used to examine the relationships
between each type of passion with the control variables, while
controlling for age, gender, and time in relationship (only participants in couple), and the other control variables when applicable.
We also examined whether there were interactions with gender or
relational status. Results are shown in Table 2. As can be seen,
both HSP and OSP were positively and independently associatedwith sociosexuality and relational passion, but unrelated to selfcontrol. In other words, each of the two types of sexual passion
contributed independently of each other to predict sociosexuality
and relational passion.
HSP and OSP related in similar ways to the control variables, butdifferently to the relational outcomes (see Table 2), even after controlling for self-control, sociosexuality, and relational passion. HSP
was positively associated with relationship quality, but not OSP. OSP
was positively associated with attentiveness to romantic alternatives
and sex conflict, but not HSP. Finally, as hypothesized, OSP, but not
HSP, was positively related to verbal and physical violence as anendorsed response to the scenario of jealousy.3
Overall, the present results suggest that sexual passion is a distinct
construct from those of sociosexuality, relational passion, and selfcontrol, with important predictive validity as pertains to romantic
relational outcomes. In addition, both OSP and HSP lead to different
predictions with respect to these relational outcomes, as hypothesized,with HSP leading to more adaptive outcomes than OSP.

Study 3: Sexual Passion and the Survival of
Romantic Relationships
The objective of Study 3 was to examine a central relational
consequence of sexual passion on the most important romantic relationship outcome: the sustainability of relationships over time. We
asked people engaged in a serious relationship at the time of the study
to complete measures of sexual passion, and more than 1 year later,
we examined whether the same participants were still with the same
partner or not. We also investigated four other potential predictor
variables that might share variance with sexual passion, and whichhave been evidenced to impact couple sustainability: relationshipquality (Le, Dove, Agnew, Korn, & Mutso, 2010), attachment(Feeney & Noller, 1992), psychological distress (Whisman, Tolejko,& Chatav, 2007), and romantic passion. The latter has often been
confounded with sexual passion. However, romantic passion reflects
passion toward a romantic partner and has been found to predict
relationship sustainability (Carbonneau & Vallerand, 2013; Ratelle,
Carbonneau, Vallerand, & Mageau, 2013).

MethodParticipants and procedures. A total of 192 undergraduate
and graduate students (81% females, mean age ⫽ 24.40 years,
SD ⫽ 4.74) engaged in a serious romantic relationship (at least
three months old) at the beginning of the study were invited using
their institutional e-mail to complete an online questionnaire regarding their couple relationship. At Time 1, they completed scalesof attachment, psychological distress, relationship quality, as wellas romantic and sexual passion scales. At Time 2, 1.5 years later,
they were asked whether they were still with the same partner orwhether they had broken up. If a breakup had occurred, they wereasked to indicate the day and month when it took place.
Measures.
Sexual Passion Scale. The same Passion Scale used in Studies
1 and 2 was used again in this study. Alphas were .84 and .78 for
HSP and OSP, respectively.
Relationship quality. The PRQC used in Study 2 was usedagain in this study. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was .87 in thisstudy.
Attachment. The ECR-S (Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007) is a short, 12-item version of the Experiences in Close
Relationships scale (ECR; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998) used
to measure the two adult romantic attachment dimensions, eachwith six items. Evidence of validity and reliability highly similar tothe original full scale has been reported for this short scale (Wei etal., 2007). Alphas were .70 and .72 for the Avoidance and Anxiety
subscales, respectively.
Psychological distress. The short, 10-item scale of the Symptom Checklist (Derogatis, 1975; Rosen et al., 2000) was used toassess psychological distress. This scale assesses various psychological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, interpersonal sensitivity, and somatization, and correlates highly (rs ⬎ .50) withvarious other symptoms scales (e.g., Rosen et al., 2000). Partici3
HSP and OSP were not associated with the items measuring distrustand communicative actions. Overall, There were some significant HSP ⫻Gender and OSP ⫻ Gender interactions. Simple effects revealed that HSP
was positively associated with self-control in men (t ⫽ 3.29, p ⬍ .01), but
not in women (t ⬍ 1.00, ns). Conversely, OSP was negatively associatedwith self-control for females (t ⫽ ⫺2.32, p ⬍ .05), but was unrelated formales (t ⫽ 1.22, ns). Results also revealed that OSP was more strongly
associated with sociosexuality in males (t ⫽ 3.70, p ⬍ .01) than in females(t ⫽ 2.29, p ⬍ .05), although the relationship was significant for both
sexes. There were no other significant moderations, including interactions
with relational status.

PHILIPPE ET AL.

776

Table 2
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Control variables

Relational outcomes

Variables

Self-control

Sociosexuality

Relationalpassion

Step 1Age
GenderRelational status
Time in relation
Self-control
Sociosexuality
Relational passion
HSP
OSP
n

.04
⫺.03
⫺.01
—
—
⫺.21ⴱ
—
.14
⫺.16
165

.07
.08
⫺.16ⴱ
—
⫺.17ⴱ
—
—
.29ⴱⴱ
.27ⴱⴱ
165

⫺.11
.14
—
⫺.09
.20ⴱ
⫺.14
—
.46ⴱⴱ
.31ⴱⴱ
106

Relationshipquality

Attentiveness toalternatives

Sex conflict

Violent actions
under threat

⫺.21ⴱ
⫺.04
—
.16
⫺.01
⫺.05
.54ⴱⴱ
.26ⴱⴱ
⫺.07
106

.01
.00
—
⫺.02
⫺.02
.51ⴱⴱ
⫺.16
.13
.19ⴱ
106

⫺.03
.07
.02
—
⫺.20ⴱⴱ
.07
—
.04
.39ⴱⴱ
165

⫺.23ⴱ
⫺.05
—
.17
.02
⫺.06
⫺.19
.05
.41ⴱⴱ
106

Note. n ⫽ 165 (n ⫽ 106 in couple, 49 singles). Relational status: 0 ⫽ single, 1 ⫽ in couple. Gender: 0 ⫽ females, 1 ⫽ males. HSP ⫽ harmonious sexualpassion; OSP ⫽ Obsessive sexual passion; Dash ⫽ association between these variables was not measured.
ⴱp ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01.

pants were asked to rate the extent to which they had been
bothered by each symptom during the last 2 months on a 5-point
Likert scale (1 ⫽ not at all, 5 ⫽ extremely). Alpha was .82 in thisstudy.
Romantic Passion Scale. The Romantic Passion Scale (Carbonneau & Vallerand, 2013; Ratelle et al., 2013) has been developed in light of the literature on passionate activities and assesses
both harmonious and obsessive romantic passion toward one’s
romantic partner. The use of this scale thus consisted of a very
stringent test of the distinction between sexual and romantic passion, as the only difference between the two scales was that theitems pertain to one’s partner in the Romantic Passion Scale (e.g.,“My relationship with my partner is in harmony with the otheractivities in my life”) and to sex in general in the Sexual Passion
Scale (e.g., “Sex is in harmony with the other activities in mylife,”). Only the three items of each type of romantic passion
corresponding to the items of the sexual passion subscales wereused. Alphas were .91 and .57 for HSP and OSP, respectively.

Results and Discussion
Table 3 reports the means, standard deviations, and correlationsof all study variables. As in Study 2, HSP, but not OSP, waspositively associated with relationship quality. Romantic passion
paralleled this finding, as only harmonious, but not obsessive,romantic passion was positively associated with relationship quality. As expected, both attachment anxiety and avoidance andpsychological distress were negatively associated with relationshipquality. Finally, both HSP and OSP were unrelated to psychological distress, underscoring that no type of sexual passion appears to
be a response to— or a determinant of—psychological distress.
One-and-a-half years later, the same participants were contacted
again and asked if they were still with the same partner or not. If
not, they were asked to provide the month and day of theirbreakup. For participants who reported the dissolution of theirTime 1 relationship, we computed their survival time by subtracting the date of their breakup from the date they had initiallycompleted the Time 1 questionnaire. For participants who werestill with the same partner, we calculated the time variable bysubtracting the date they completed the questionnaire at Time 2 by
the date they completed the Time 1 questionnaire. A survival
analysis was conducted with union dissolution (0 ⫽ same partner,
1 ⫽ dissolution) as the dependent variable and the time since it
occurred. Independent variables were age, gender, duration of therelationship at Time 1, relationship quality, attachment, romantic

Table 3Means, Standard Deviations, and Zero-Order Correlations Between Sexual and Romantic Passion, Attachment, PsychologicalDistress, and Relationship Quality: Study 3
Variables

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

(1) Harmonious sexual passion(2) Obsessive sexual passion(3) Anxious attachment(4) Avoidant attachment(5) Psychological distress(6) Harmonious romantic passion(7) Obsessive romantic passion(8) Relationship quality

5.39
1.99
3.03
2.13
1.97
5.78
2.09
5.68

1.42
1.12
1.02
.80
.59
1.15
1.03
.94

—
.18ⴱ
⫺.17ⴱ
⫺.29ⴱⴱ
⫺.13
.30ⴱⴱ
.09
.49ⴱⴱ

—
.02
.20ⴱⴱ
.08
⫺.18ⴱⴱ
.31ⴱⴱ
⫺.01

—
.22ⴱⴱ
.42ⴱⴱ
⫺.25ⴱⴱ
.44ⴱⴱ
⫺.35ⴱⴱ

—.36ⴱⴱ
⫺.51ⴱⴱ
⫺.02⫺.52ⴱⴱ

—⫺.33ⴱⴱ
.37ⴱⴱ
⫺.28ⴱⴱ

—
⫺.05
.58ⴱⴱ

—
.06

Note. n ⫽ 192. Dash ⫽ association between these variables was not measured.
ⴱp ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01.

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DUALISTIC MODEL OF SEXUAL PASSION

passion, psychological distress, and sexual passion—all measured
at Time 1. Results revealed that OSP was positively associatedwith a greater likelihood of breaking up over time, over and above
all other covariates (b ⫽ 1.08, standard error [SE] ⫽ .55, Wald ⫽3.89, p ⬍ .05). Duration of the relationship at Time 1 was negatively associated with the likelihood of union dissolution over time(b ⫽ ⫺.016, SE ⫽ .008, Wald ⫽ 4.16, p ⬍ .05). Harmonious
romantic passion was also negatively associated with union dissolution (b ⫽ ⫺.34, SE ⫽ .15, Wald ⫽ 4.99, p ⬍ .05), thus
replicating the results of Ratelle and colleagues (2013). No othervariables, including HSP, were significant.
As expected, OSP was shown to lead to less constructive relational outcomes, as it predicted union dissolution, even after controlling for relationship quality, attachment, and psychologicaldistress—all variables that have been shown to influence relationship dissolution. HSP, however, did not predict a greater likelihoodof remaining with the same partner, but was not associated with
union dissolution either. Finally, the fact that both harmonious
romantic passion and OSP independently predicted union dissolution speaks to the conceptual distinction between romantic andsexual passion.

Study 4: Delving into the Cognitive Representationsof Sexual Passion
Study 1 provided evidence for intrapersonal subjective consequences of sexual passion, and Studies 2 and 3 for relational
consequences of sexual passion. Studies 4 and 5 will show thecognitive consequences of sexual passion that can be expectedaccording to the dualistic model of passion. Notably, this model
states that HSP and OSP should reflect different levels of integration of sexual representations. Attachment theories (Birnbaum,
2007; Hazan & Shaver, 1987; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007) specify
that the sexual system tends to merge increasingly with the relational/attachment system once in adulthood, and that a coherent
and harmonious mental organization occurs when both systems areallowed to freely intertwine. Therefore, with HSP, sexual representations should be particularly well integrated with relational
representations, which should not be the case for OSP. A firstobjective of Study 4 was therefore to examine the proportion ofsexual versus relational semantic representations characterizing
each type of sexual passion. Given the posited greater integrationof relational and sexual representations in HSP, it was hypothesized that with a high level of HSP, people should report an equallevel of semantic sexual and relational representations. Conversely, in OSP, there should be a preponderance of sexual representations over relational ones. Because these relationships are notnecessarily linear, as they are expected to occur only at a certain
level of sexual versus relational representations, we also tested
quadratic relationships.
A second objective of Study 4 was to examine the cognitive
consequences of each type of sexual passion by investigating how
sexual information is processed under each type of passion. Whena sexual stimulus is encountered under OSP, this activates thesexual system of representations. Because these representations
share little integration with other types of representations (notably
relational), the activation should remain strong and heavily taintthe person’s judgment, such that situations should be perceived as
inexorably sexual when, objectively, they very well could not be.

777

Under HSP, sexual representations are well integrated with othertypes of representations. Consequently, activation freely flows
through complex networks of representations and the person’s
judgment is nuanced and encompasses competing interpretations,
including nonsexual ones. We tested these hypotheses in two
ways. First, we showed participants an ambiguous scenario between two students interacting and asked whether the intentions of
the target person in the scenario were sexual or not. Second, we
presented participants with either sex words or neutral words
within a lexical-decision task and asked them to classify them asquickly as they could. Embedded in those words were words that
could take a sexual connotation, but not necessarily (e.g., nurse,
heels, uniform). We expected that OSP would be associated withmore of these ambiguous words classified as sexual than as neutral, and with greater perceptions of sexual intentions in the ambiguous scenario. HSP should not show any bias in the processingof sexual information.

MethodParticipants. A total of 162 undergraduate and graduate students took part in this study (116 females, 46 males; 34% singles).
Their mean age was 26.90 years (SD ⫽ 6.77). They were invitedusing their institutional e-mail to participate in an online study on
sexual attitudes and behaviors in exchange for being entered intoa draw for one of three prizes of $125. They completed the Sexual
Passion Scale and then read the ambiguous scenario. Next, they
completed the semantic representations task and the lexical classification task.
Measures.
Sexual passion. Alphas for the Harmonious and Obsessive
subscales were .86 and .73.
Sexual/relational semantic representations. Participants were asked
to list as many words as they could in 1 minute that are related to
the word “sex.” Two judges, blind to the participants’ other data,coded these words for whether they corresponded to purely sexual
words (e.g., “penis,” “breasts,” “vibrator”), sexual-relational
words (“intimate,” “caress,” “intercourse”), or other (e.g., “energy”). Interjudge reliability was adequate, with intraclass rs ⬎.90. A ratio of sexual versus relational words was calculated by
dividing the number of sexual words (incremented by 1) by the
number of relational words (incremented by 1). As such, a highscore on this index represents a greater number of sexual versus
relational semantic representations.
Biased processing: Perceptions of sexual intentions. We presented students with an ambiguous scenario that could suggest thatthe other person has a sexual interest in the participant, while manyother explanations would remain plausible (e.g., friendliness):
You are attending a class at school and you are sitting next to a(male/female) student you find attractive. There is an in-class teamassignment and this student suggests that you do it together. The
assignment goes well and during the break, you go together to thestudent coffee shop to buy a coffee and continue your discussion.
Once the class is over, he or she mentions that he or she liked to workwith you and congratulates you for the oral presentation you made in
the previous class. He or she then proposes to wait for you so that you
can walk together to the subway. Before leaving you, he or she smiles,
wishes you a good evening, and adds “see you in class next week!”

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778

Participants were then presented with a number of items expressing the intents of the other person. A first set of six items
assessed nonsexual friendliness (e.g., “Does this person want to befriend with you?”; “Does this person find you intelligent?”), and asecond set of nine items assessed sexual intents (e.g., “Does thisperson find you sexually attractive?”; “Is this person sexuallyinterested by you?”). Participants rated each item with a slider
ranging from 0 (not at all) to 100 (extremely). Alphas were .62 forfriendly and .93 for sexual intents.
Biased processing: Responses to ambiguous sexual words. A
lexical classification task was used to assess biases in the processing of sexual versus neutral (other) words and of ambiguously
sexual words. Participants were shown, one by one on a computer
screen, sex-related words (e.g., “penis,” “intercourse,” “ass”) or
neutral nonsexual words (e.g., “pizza,” “bird,” “calculator”), andwere asked to press, as quickly as possible, the “s” key on their
keyboard to classify a trial word as sexual or the “k” key to classify
the trial word as a nonsexual neutral word. In addition to thosewords, there was a set of ambiguous words that could take a sexual
connotation, but that are typically not understood as sexual (e.g.,“nurse,” “heels,” “uniform”).
Participants first completed a set of 16 trials and then continued
with the real task for 92 trials. We examined whether ambiguous
words would be categorized as sexual or not by computing an
index summing how many of these words had been classified as
sexual. Alpha for this index was .65. We also calculated indexes
for the number of sexual (␣ ⫽ .76) and neutral words (␣ ⫽ .85)
correctly classified. In addition to these indexes, reactions times(RTs) were calculated for each trial, thus assessing processing
speed of sexual versus nonsexual (neutral and nonambiguous)
stimuli. We based our calculation of RTs on the improved algorithm of the Implicit Association Task (Greenwald, Nosek, &Banaji, 2003), with the exception that we did not enforce an error
penalty. Trial blocks were discarded. This algorithm yields a dmeasure (called d-sex in the present study) that is the difference
between the means of the RTs for the sexual and neutral trials
divided by its associated pooled-trial standard deviation. We multiplied the result by ⫺1, such that a higher score on this measureindicates faster RTs to sexual versus neutral words.

as their means and standard deviations. Regression analyses wereused to examine the association between sexual passion and theratio sexual/relational of semantic representations. Controlling for
HSP, we examined whether there was a linear and a quadratic
relationship between OSP and the ratio of semantic representations. OSP served as the dependent variable (because semantic
representations are tested for their quadratic relationship with OSP,
their terms must be entered as independent variables). At Step 1,
HSP and the ratio of semantic representations were entered. At
Step 2, the squared term of semantic representations was entered.
Results revealed a main linear effect of semantic ratio on OSP(␤ ⫽ .30, p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽ .088), with Step 1 explaining 9% of thevariance, F(2, 159) ⫽ 7.68, p ⬍ .01. At Step 2, results showed asignificant quadratic function of the semantic ratio (B ⫽ .058,
SE ⫽ .029, ⫽ .49, t ⫽ 2.00, p ⬍ .05, ⌬R2 ⫽ .023). Plotting of thisquadratic function (see Figure 1a) showed a U shape, representing
a null relationship between OSP and the ratio of semantic representations when the ratio was below 1.00 (sexual vs. relational
representations) and OSP was below 2.13 (vertex point). However,once the number of sexual representations increased above thenumber of relational representations (a ratio above 1.00), OSP
started to show a steep increase. Controlling for the total numberof semantic words provided did not affect the results, thus underscoring that it is the ratio of sexual over relational representations
that is associated with OSP.
The same regression was conducted, this time with HSP as thedependent variable and controlling for OSP. At Step 1, results
showed that the ratio of semantic representations was negatively
and linearly associated with HSP (␤ ⫽ ⫺.18, p ⬍ .05, R2 ⫽ .03),
thus suggesting that too many sexual over relational representations decreases HSP. At Step 2, results also revealed a significant
quadratic function of semantic representations (B ⫽ ⫺.072, SE ⫽.036, ⫽ ⫺.51, t ⫽ ⫺2.01, p ⬍ .05, ⌬R2 ⫽ .024). Controlling forthe total number of semantic words did not alter the results.
Plotting of this quadratic function (see Figure 1b) revealed aninverse U shape, showing an increasing positive relationship between the ratio of semantic representations and HSP until the ratio
reached 1.95 and HSP 5.19 (vertex). Past this point, the relationship between the semantic ratio and HSP turned negative. This
result implies that an adequate balance between sexual and relational representations is associated with HSP, not simply relational
representations. However, once sexual representations are overrepresented by approximately twice the number of relational rep-

Results
Level of integration of sexual representations in HSP and
OSP. Table 4 shows correlations among study variables as well
Table 4Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations: Study 4
Variables

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

(1) Harmonious sexual passion(2) Obsessive sexual passion(3) Ratio of semantic representations(4) Sexual categorization of ambiguous words(5) Sexual categorization of sex-related words(6) Errors classifying neutral words(7) Scenario – perceived sexual intentions(8) Scenario – perceived friendly intentions(9) d-sex

5.00
2.25
1.50
.24
.92
.04
46.42
66.72
.06

1.40
1.12
1.51
.21
.11
.08
17.91
10.70
.17

—
.02
⫺.16ⴱ
⫺.08
.05
.03
.05
.03
⫺.04

—
.29ⴱⴱ
.36ⴱⴱ
.03
.20ⴱ
.31ⴱⴱ
.08
.19ⴱ

—
.22ⴱⴱ
.08
.11
.10
.16ⴱ
.25ⴱⴱ

—
.26ⴱⴱ
.52ⴱⴱ
.34ⴱⴱ
.04
.65ⴱⴱ

—
.05
.32ⴱⴱ
.16ⴱ
.39ⴱⴱ

—
.13
.01
.53ⴱⴱ

—
.26ⴱⴱ
.33ⴱⴱ

—
.03

Note. n ⫽ 162. Dash ⫽ association between these variables was not measured.
ⴱp ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01.

DUALISTIC MODEL OF SEXUAL PASSION

779

Overall, the present findings support the contention that sexual
semantic representations are more integrated with relational semantic representations in HSP, whereas sexual representations
appear to be overwhelmingly preponderant in OSP relative torelational representations. Such a mental organization has important consequences for the processing of external stimuli, as sexrelated information is more quickly processed and ambiguous
stimuli are more likely to be interpreted as sexual in OSP, but notin HSP.

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Study 5a: When Attractive Targets Disrupt Attention
and Goals

Figure 1. Study 4: Curvilinear relationships between ratio of semantic
representations (sexual/relational) and obsessive and harmonious sexualpassion.

resentations, HSP starts to decrease and, as shown above, OSP
begins to increase.4
Biased processing of sexual information. Next, we conducted two separate linear regression analyses to examine how
HSP and OSP entered as independent variables would be associated with the number of ambiguous words classified as sexual andwith perceived sexual intentions in the scenario (processing bias
variables). Results showed that only OSP was positively associatedwith ambiguous words classified as sexual (␤ ⫽ .36, p ⬍ .01),
whereas HSP was unrelated to them (␤ ⫽ ⫺.09, ns). Controlling
for the number of sexual words correctly classified did not alter
these results and both OSP and HSP were unrelated to this variable(␤ ⬍ .05, ns). Results also showed that, while controlling forfriendly intentions, OSP was positively associated with perceived
sexual intentions in the scenario (␤ ⫽ .29, p ⬍ .01), whereas HSP
was unrelated to them (␤ ⫽ .05, ns).

Study 4 showed that HSP and OSP differ in the organization of
their cognitive representations and in the way ambiguous stimuli
are processed. Study 5 examined whether this biased attention
placed on sexual stimuli found in OSP could lead to cognitive
consequences beyond the processing of sexual information. Morespecifically, Study 5 investigated whether processing sexual stimuli could conflict with ongoing sex-unrelated goals. With OSP,
representations about sexuality show little integration with othertypes of mental representations. When these representations areactivated by sexual stimuli, the activation remains circumscribedto a restrained area and high, as it does not spread into moreelaborated networks of goals and actions. This high activation ismore difficult to inhibit and the person’s attention is thus more
likely to shift onto the external stimuli, even when these stimuli aretask-irrelevant, which may bring about intrusive thoughts and/or
conflict with the task at hand. In the case of HSP, representations
about sexuality are complexly intertwined with relational aspects
and other representations. When external sexual stimuli trigger
these representations, activation spreads into a complex system ofgoals and actions, which are likely to dilute the activation if judged
irrelevant to the immediate task at hand.
To examine this issue, we used subliminal sexual stimuli byunconsciously priming people with (a) photos of attractive
opposite-sex targets, (b) photos of low-average opposite-sex targets, or (c) a black-and-white-mask background, within a task
totally unrelated to sex. The task consisted of responding, as fast as
possible, to whether photos presented on a screen were natural(e.g., strawberry) or artificial (e.g., airplane) objects. We expectedthat the unconscious presentation of sexual stimuli would beprocessed differently as a function of the type of sexual passion
people hold and would affect the speed at which the sex-unrelated
task was completed.
We hypothesized that with OSP, people should not be able tocontrol the activation of their primed sexual representations, whichshould conflict with their ongoing goals (completing the natural vs.
artificial objects task). Consequently, OSP should be positively
associated with RTs, as high OSP should show slower RTs thanlow OSP compared with the control groups. Conversely, because
HSP is characterized by complex and integrated representational
4
The speed at which participants classified the sexual versus the neutral
nonambiguous words (d-sex) was positively associated with the ratio of
semantic representations, thus suggesting that overrepresentation of semantic sexual representations compared with relational ones is conducive to afaster processing of sexual stimuli versus nonsexual (neutral) stimuli.
These results provide support for the validity of our ratio measure and arein line with a fan effect.

780

PHILIPPE ET AL.

networks related to sexuality, this should facilitate the reduction of
the mental activation triggered by the unconscious presentation of
attractive partners and should therefore not disrupt attention on
ongoing goals. Therefore, it was expected that HSP would be
negatively associated with RTs, as high HSP should show fasterRTs to respond than low HSP compared with the control group(primed with low average-looking targets or a black-and-whitemask).

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MethodParticipants and procedures. Participants were 156 heterosexual people (98 females and 58 males) from the general population in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United
Kingdom, and recruited through the CrowdFlower interface. Meanage was 39.15 years (SD ⫽ 12.58). The vast majority (78%) was
Caucasian, 12% were Asian, and the remainder were from otherethnic origins. A total of 42% were single, and the others were
either dating, common-law partners, or married. To avoid participants’ awareness of the purpose of the study, we framed it as astudy on personality and information processing. Participants werefirst asked to complete a 44-item personality inventory. Embedded
among those items were two harmonious and two OSP items. We
only used two items per subscale to avoid the many repetitions of
the term “sex” and therefore raising suspicion. Participants wererandomly assigned to the experimental condition (primed withphotos of attractive targets) or to one of two control groups (oneprimed with photos of low-average attractiveness targets and theother primed with a black-and-white mask).
Measures.
Sexual Passion Scale. Interitem correlations were .70 and .85
for HSP and OSP, respectively.
Pictures priming—The natural versus artificial objects task.
A set of 60 photos of physically attractive and low-average looking
males and females were selected from the public website www.hotornot.com. Low-average pictures were selected in order toavoid any potential overlap in attractiveness between attractive andaverage pictures. Pictures were initially selected based on theratings of the website’s users. Photos were set in black and white
and the background was replaced by a randomized black-andwhite texture. Additionally, a different sample of heterosexual
undergraduate students (n ⫽ 133, 70% females) was asked to ratethe 30 opposite-sex target photos for how physically attractive they
were (1 ⫽ not at all physically attractive, 10 ⫽ extremely physically attractive). The five male and five female photos rated thehighest were selected as attractive photos (M ⫽ 7.00, SD ⫽ 1.49),
and the five male and five female photos with a low-average score(M ⫽ 3.25, SD ⫽ 1.45) served as unattractive (control) photos.
The task was programmed in Javascript, using the jQuery library, and was HTML5 compliant. It was modeled over the Bunnies & Lions Task, which has been recently developed to accommodate online semantic priming (Philippe & Bernard-Desrosiers,
2016; http://www.elaborer.org/bunnies&lions.html). Each trial of
the task was constructed such that a plus (⫹) sign appeared in thecenter of the screen for 1,000 ms, followed by a 175-ms presentation of a natural or artificial object, followed by the presentationof a black-and-white photo of an attractive opposite sex person(control groups: low-average attractive person or black-and-whitemask) for a duration of 20 ms. Immediately following this prime

appeared a textured mask photo for 200 ms, immediately followedby the presentation of a natural or artificial object for 300 ms. The
sequence of images then stopped on another natural or artificial
object until the participant made a response. Such a sequence ofimages makes it very hard for the participants to consciously focus
on a particular one, except the last fixed one. For each object
presented in the still image at the end of the sequence, participants
were asked to press, as quickly as possible, the letter “a” if it wasan artificial object or the letter “n” if it was a natural object. They
were initially instructed that a natural object was something that
could be found as is in the nature (e.g., strawberry, sheep, leaf),
whereas an artificial object was something human-made/manufactured (e.g., airplane, clock, bottle). They were asked to classify 60
natural or artificial objects, and each trial included a prime.
After the priming task, participants were asked the following:
In some conditions of the artificial-natural object task, images ofpeople’s faces were quickly flashed. Have you noticed these faces?
You may not have been in the condition where faces were flashed, andeven if you were, most people do not see these faces. However, if you
did see them, could you describe these people (e.g., male or female,
attractive or not, young or old)? If you did not notice these faces,
respond no.

Seven participants (4%) reported having seen at least one face.
Deleting those participants did not alter any of the results; therefore, all participants were kept in the analyses.

Results and Discussion
Data analyses. Because the two types of passion were continuous variables, a regression analysis was conducted with interaction terms between each type of passion and the experimental
conditions as dummy-coded variables (k – 1). Reaction times to thenatural versus artificial objects tasks served as the dependent
variable. Trials with errors were deleted, and RTs were transformed using a natural log function to reduce the influence ofoutliers, as recommended (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Given thetype of participants recruited and the novelty of the priming
method used, we enforced a number of validity checks. First,
participants who did not get at least two thirds of the responses
right were eliminated (n ⫽ 12), thus ensuring that all participants
completed the task carefully or did not misread the instructions.5
Second, presentation time of each prime was recorded, given thatall browsers and computers may not render the stimuli at the exact
same presentation time. On average, prime presentation time was25.50 ms (SD ⫽ 13.67 ms). Only two participants had presentation
time above 45 ms (84 ms and 174 ms). However, these participants
did not report having seen faces during the task and their exclusion
did not alter the results. They were therefore kept in the final
analyses.
Main data analyses. A one-way ANOVA revealed that there
were significant differences among the conditions (i.e., attractive,
low-average, mask) on the RTs, F(2, 153) ⫽ 3.42, p ⬍ .05.
Orthogonal contrasts revealed that participants in the attractive
condition had significantly slower RTs (M ⫽ 7.15 log-ms, SD ⫽0.39) than those in the low-average (M ⫽ 7.02 log-ms, SD ⫽ 0.37)
5The sample size remains 156; these participants were excluded fromthe demographic data presented in the Participants section.

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DUALISTIC MODEL OF SEXUAL PASSION

and mask conditions (M ⫽ 6.96 log-ms, SD ⫽ 0.40), t(154) ⫽2.48, p ⬍ .05, whereas the low-average and mask conditions did
not differ against each other, t(109) ⫽ 0.87, ns. A multiple regression analysis was conducted with RTs during the task as thedependent variable, and HSP, OSP, and dummy coded variables(attractive ⫽ 0 or 1; low-attractive ⫽ 0 or 1) representing thegroups, with the mask condition serving as the comparison condition (excluded variable). Interaction terms HSP ⫻ Attractive,
HSP ⫻ Low-Attractive, OSP ⫻ Attractive, and OSP ⫻ LowAttractive were added as independent variables. Results revealed amain effect of the attractive condition (␤ ⫽ .21, p ⬍ .05), but alsosignificant HSP ⫻ Attractive (␤ ⫽ ⫺.24, p ⬍ .05) and OSP ⫻Attractive (␤ ⫽ .22, p ⬍ .05) interactions. There were no significant two-way or three-way interactions with gender.
Simple effects of the HSP ⫻ Attractive interaction (see Figure2a) revealed that RTs were significantly slower for participants
with low HSP (–1 SD) when attractive versus average opposite-sex
targets (t ⫽ 2.35, p ⬍ .05) or a background mask were primed (t ⫽3.11, p ⬍ .01). Conversely, there were no differences in RTs forparticipants with high HSP (⫹1 SD), whether they were primed
with attractive or low-average opposite-sex people (t ⫽ 0.50, p ⫽.62) or with a background mask (t ⫽ ⫺0.04, ns). Simple effects of
the OSP ⫻ Attractive interaction (see Figure 2b) unveiled theexact opposite results. There was no difference between the experimental groups when OSP was low (–1 SD), all ts ⬍ 0.85, p ⬎.40, but RTs were significantly slower when participants with high
OSP (⫹1 SD) were primed with attractive versus low-averagea781

opposite sex targets (t ⫽ 2.17, p ⬍ .05) or with a background mask(t ⫽ 3.00, p ⬍ .01).
These results show that HSP provides the person with agreater control over his sexual drive, as people with high HSP
were not disturbed by the unconscious presentation of attractive
targets, compared with average targets, and pursued their ongoing goal, paying full attention to the task at hand (identifying
natural vs. artificial objects). Interestingly, high HSP appears toprovide greater control over sexual drive than low HSP. Conversely, activation of sexual representations through the unconscious presentation of attractive targets in people with high OSP
disrupted their focus from their ongoing goal, potentially bytriggering implicit sex-related thoughts or goals. Because thepresentation of the primes was unconscious, these results suggest that, with high OSP or low HSP, the mere activation ofsexual representations (i.e., physically attractive targets) canconflict with people’s ongoing goals before they even becomeaware of it.

Study 5b
To eliminate the uncertainty of the lower level of control inan online study over the priming and time reaction task, wereplicated Study 5a in laboratory conditions with the software
E-prime. In addition, only participants in couples were recruited
to evaluate whether relationship quality would influence theresults. Finally, we used only two conditions, the attractive andthe low-average target priming conditions, because Study 5ashowed no difference between the low-attractive and thebackground-mask conditions.

Methodb

Participants were 36 heterosexual undergraduate and graduate
students engaged in a romantic relationship at the time of thestudy. Mean age was 26.31 years (SD ⫽ 6.87). At Time 1, they
completed the Sexual Passion Scale (alphas were .70 and .85 for
HSP and OSP) and the seven-item Perceived Relationship Quality
Components Inventory (␣ ⫽ .85; Fletcher et al., 2000a). At Time2, 1 week later, they were invited to the lab to complete the lastphase of the study. They were first instructed that they would
complete a task (pictures priming task) with the ostensible aim ofremoving their daily thoughts before responding to other questionnaires. Participants were randomly assigned to the experimental(photos of attractive targets primed) or control (photos of low toaverage attractive targets primed) group. After the priming task,
participants were probed for suspicion, were fully debriefed, andwere paid $10 for their participation. No participants reported
having seen any of the primes.

Results

Figure 2. Study 5a: Interactions between experimental conditions and (a)HSP or (b) OSP on reaction times (log). See the online article for the color
version of this figure.

A multiple regression analysis was conducted with RTs during
the task as the dependent variable, and HSP, OSP, conditions (0 ⫽average, 1 ⫽ attractive), and their interaction terms (HSP ⫻Conditions and OSP ⫻ Conditions) as independent variables.
Results revealed significant HSP ⫻ Conditions (␤ ⫽ ⫺.42, p ⬍.05) and OSP ⫻ Conditions (␤ ⫽ .45, p ⬍ .05) interactions.
Controlling for quality of the relationship, age, and gender did notPHILIPPE ET AL.

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782

affect these results. In addition, there were no significant two-way
or three-way interactions with gender.6
Plotting of these interactions revealed the exact same pattern ofresults as that of Study 5a. Simple effects of the HSP ⫻ Conditions
interaction revealed that RTs were significantly slower for participants with low HSP (⫺1 SD) when attractive versus low-average
opposite-sex people were primed (t ⫽ 2.33, p ⬍ .05). Conversely,
there were no differences in RTs for participants with high HSP (⫹1SD), whether they were primed with attractive or low-average opposite sex people (t ⫽ 1.13, p ⫽ .27). In addition, there was nodifference between the two experimental groups when OSP was low(–1 SD; t ⫽ 0.93, p ⫽ .35), but RTs were significantly slower whenparticipants with high OSP (⫹1 SD) were primed with attractive
versus low-average opposite sex targets (t ⫽ 2.71, p ⬍ .05).
These findings support the hypothesis that the processing of sexualstimuli under HSP and OSP is different, with one facilitating attention
on task goal and the other creating increasing conflict with it.

General Discussion
The present research investigated a new conceptualization ofsexual passion. Drawing from motivational models in the field of
passionate activities, passion was defined in terms of its intrapersonal motivational and cognitive determinants, without restraining
it to interpersonal ramifications occurring with a partner. It was
proposed that passion can lead to some of the same consequences
experienced either as a single or in a romantic couple. In addition,
the classical single-dimension conceptualization of sexual passion
was extended to suggest that two forms of sexual passion exist,
HSP and OSP, corresponding to specific mental organizations
varying in their level of integration of sexual representations. The
present research provided support for such a model of sexualpassion by highlighting (a) the construct validity of a dualistic
model of sexual passion assessing HSP and OSP, (b) the existenceof both types of passion in singles as well as in people engaged ina romantic couple, and (d) the predictive and discriminant validityof each type of passion in regard of subjective, relational, andcognitive outcomes, including information-processing bias andgoal conflict. Overall, the present research provides supporting
evidence for the fruitfulness of a motivational, cognitive, anddifferentiated approach to sexual passion in order to understandboth its intra and interpersonal outcomes.

Validity of a Dual Perspective on Sexual Passion
Study 1 provided support for a dual perspective of sexual passion.
First, evidence of factorial validity of the Sexual Passion Scale wasobtained, supporting two different types of sexual passion, HSP and
OSP. The scale was found to be largely invariant to gender andrelational status. This latter finding confirms that sexual passion can
exist to the same extent in people either engaged with a romantic
partner or single. HSP and OSP were also similarly correlated with thecriteria of passion, underscoring that they both represent a type ofsexual passion. Yet HSP and OSP were uncorrelated with each otherand differentially predicted various subjective, relational, and cognitive outcomes related to sexuality.
A dualistic understanding of sexual passion appears to extend
the classical single-dimension conceptualization. Indeed, conceptualizing sexual passion in terms of the intensity of one’s sexualdesire or of one’s attraction toward a partner can be a key defining
component of sexual passion, but one that can also “miss the trees
for the forest” when sexual passion is defined according to thissole criterion. Indeed, both HSP and OSP were found to be
characterized by high levels of passion (Study 1) and high physicalattraction to their romantic partner (Study 2)—yet they wereshown to lead to dramatically different subjective, relational, andcognitive consequences. This underscores that the type of organization of the sexual representations and their expression into aparticular type of sexual passion—not just their intensity or motivational components—is important to take into account.

On the Distinct Consequences of HSP and OSP
The present findings showed that the two types of sexualpassion differed in the way sexual activities are experienced
and in the way to which sexual stimuli are attended. Because
OSP comes from a controlled internalization of sexual representations, those representations remain poorly integrated withother types of representations. Therefore, whenever a sexualstimulus is encountered, activation cannot freely flow to othertypes of representations, but rather remains constricted to sexual representations only. Consequently, sexuality is experienced as imposing itself on the person, which limits the rangeof positive cognitive and affective experiences that can be felt
during sexual activities and can even lead to the experiences ofnegative emotions. Conflict between sexuality and other life
spheres is frequent, and attention is easily disrupted by perceived sexual stimuli, leading to intrusive thoughts, biased
processing of information, and precipitated, impulsive, andpotentially ill-advised actions that are likely to lead to poor
relational outcomes over time. Support was found for thesehypotheses. OSP was found to be positively associated withsome flow during sexual activities, but also with negative
emotions. OSP was also found to be associated with intrusive
thoughts, conflict, greater attentiveness to alternative partners,
judgments of ambiguous situations and concepts biased toward
sexuality, and disrupted attentional processing when sexualstimuli were unconsciously primed. OSP was also found to be
associated with violent actions under romantic relational threat
and dissolution of romantic relationships over time.
Conversely, with HSP, sexual representations are complexly
integrated with relational representations and other life spheres.
Consequently, whenever a sexual stimulus is encountered, activation expands into large and extended networks of representations
and goals. This facilitates more socialized forms of expression ofsexuality or a continuous focus on ongoing actions when deemed
relevant, even when sexual stimuli are present in the environment.
Sexuality is therefore subjectively experienced as integrated,which facilitates positive cognitive and affective experiences during sexual activities. Intrusive thoughts about sex, conflict between
sexuality and other life spheres, and impulsive and ill-advised
actions are thus much less frequent. Rather, HSP is more likely to
be conducive to constructive relational outcomes over time. Results confirmed that HSP provides people with a more complex
6
Examination of the residuals revealed two somewhat extreme cases,
but removing these participants from the analyses did not affect the results.
Therefore, all participants were kept in the final analyses.

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DUALISTIC MODEL OF SEXUAL PASSION

and integrated subjective experience during sexual activities andgreater control over their attentional processes, even when sexualstimuli can potentially disrupt ongoing goals. Low HSP was associated with less control over one’s ongoing goals compared withhigh HSP when sexual stimuli were unconsciously presented. HSP
was also unrelated to attentiveness to alternative partners as reported by the participants and negatively associated with sexual
intrusive thoughts. Given this greater integration and absence of
conflict, HSP was expected to lead to actions that are self-endorsed
and nonimpulsive, with a greater likelihood to be constructive overtime. HSP was found to be positively associated with relationshipquality and unrelated to violent actions under romantic relational
threat and relationship dissolution over time.
These findings show that a dualistic conceptualization of sexualpassion is a far-reaching construct that has several implications forthe way sexuality is expressed and enacted, but also for a wide
range of cognitive and attentional processes as various as cognitive
conflict, task attentional processes, information-processing biases,
and impulsive behaviors. These findings advance knowledge inareas as distinct as passion for activities, sexuality, and cognitive
processing.

Integrating the Sexual System With theRelational System
Attachment theories (e.g., Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007) suggestthat through adolescence and early adulthood, the sexual system
begins to merge with the relational system, thereby being conducive to an integrated sexuality. The concepts of HSP and OSP
appear to reflect important individual differences in the degree of
integration of the relational and sexual systems. In line with whatshould constitute a mature and complex integration, we found thatsemantic sexual representations were more integrated with relational representations in HSP, but less integrated in OSP. Morespecifically, once the number of sexual semantic representations
outweighed the number of relational semantic representations by
more than the double, there was a marked increase in OSP anda marked decrease in HSP. This outlines that, at a certain level,
OSP and HSP can begin to differ in important ways. Thesefindings highlight how OSP and HSP, although both being
characterized by high sexual passion, reflect two fundamentallydifferent cognitive organizations in the way the relational andsexual systems are integrated, with each leading to clearly
distinct consequences. It is also possible that with a HSP, sexual
representations are also well integrated with other types ofrepresentations other than relational ones. This could constitutea fruitful future research avenue.

Sexual Passion and Sexual Compulsivity
The present findings make a clear case that considering a highfrequency of engagement in sexuality as sexual compulsivity isextremely misleading (e.g., Rinehart & McCabe, 1997). Indeed,
our results show that HSP is characterized by an engagement insexuality as high as OSP, but such engagement in HSP seems tolead to an even more adequate functioning, which sets the groundfor positive outcomes to emerge. Moreover, in Study 1, we
examined whether each type of sexual passion interacted withthe level of passion (assessed by the passion criteria) in their783

associations with outcomes, and the results showed that it was
not the case (detailed results can be obtained from the firstauthor). This implies that both HSP and OSP start having an
impact on outcomes even at low levels of passion, and that this
impact increases monotonically as the level of passion increases. Thus, even at low levels of passion or engagement insexual activities, HSP and OSP can influence important outcomes. Frequent sexual behavior is therefore not enough tounderstand the impact of sexuality in a person’s life—it is also
necessary to understand the mental organization composing thesexual system and the corresponding type of sexual passion
underlying the behavior.
Finally, although the term obsessive is used, obsessive passion should not be equated with compulsive actions, such as in
addictions or compulsive disorders. According to the dualistic
model of passion (Vallerand, 2010, 2015), a passion entails thatthe person loves to engage in the passionate activity, whereas
addictions (e.g., drinking, gambling) are diagnosed when they
provoke clear and marked distress in the person’s life andimpaired daily functioning (Kafka, 2010). Although OSP wasshown to be conducive to negative outcomes, it does not lead to
distress, as shown by its null correlation with a distress measurein Study 3. In addition, Study 1 clearly shows that OSP is
associated with the passion criteria, notably, loving and enjoying sex-related activities, which should not be the case withsexual addictions. HSP and OSP are therefore concepts that,
although corresponding to frequent engagement in sexual activities, do not represent sexual compulsivity in terms of a
psychiatric diagnosis. These are separate constructs.

Limitations
One potential limitation is that the samples from some studies
were composed of few males compared with the number of females. It appears that study themes of romantic relationship andsexuality are more appealing to female than male participants.
Consequently, interactions with gender might not have been detected in these studies because of a lack of power. Although somestudies did include a sufficient number of males and did not show
any distinct results related to gender, the fact that it was notpossible to eliminate this uncertainty in the other studies constitutes a limitation (note, however, that even in these studies, we had
a power of .70 to detect differences of medium effect size). A
second limitation is that we did not manipulate the concept ofsexual passion and that, therefore, we cannot address causality.
Recent methodological advances have shown that it is possible toexperimentally induce a harmonious or an obsessive passion for aparticular activity and examine the immediate consequence of thisinduction (e.g., Bélanger, Lafrenière, Vallerand, & Kruglanski,
2013; Lafrenière, Vallerand, & Sedikides, 2013). Future research
could make use of such design and methodology to deepen our
understanding of how HSP and OSP distinctively process external
stimuli. Finally, the purpose of the present research was to investigate important consequences related to each type of sexual passion. However, we did not examine the specific mechanisms
leading one type of sexual passion to a particular outcome (e.g.,
relationship dissolution). Future research should examine thosemechanisms, which could further illuminate the distinction between HSP and OSP.

PHILIPPE ET AL.

784

Overall, the present research provided novel evidence in support
of a dual perspective of sexual passion based on an intraindividual
motivational and cognitive conceptualization. This conceptualization appears useful and informative not only to better understandimportant intrapersonal consequences in the life of singles as wellas couples, but also to explain the complex dyadic dynamics andoutcomes occurring in romantic relationships, thus extending past
research on the topic of sexual passion.

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Received November 30, 2015
Revision received July 4, 2016
Accepted July 21, 2016 䡲