Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Program in Neuroscience, 2022Basic and clinical sex research has long characterized sexual function in ways that do not generalize well to other scientific fields. Many have advocated for better integration of sexual science with behavioral, neuroscience, and personality theories of motivation and reward. In recent years, Pavlovian cue conditioning for sexual stimuli has been demonstrated using both genital recordings and fMRI. Reinforcement learning principles have implications for sexual function beyond the laboratory. Some have speculated that sexual problems pursuant to traumatic experiences like assault are acquired through conditioning. Yet there has been no investigation of conditioning among women affected by sexual trauma, despite over 40% of American women reporting some form of unwanted sexual contact in their lifetimes. While research has suggested that adverse outcomes after sexual violence are mediated by distress (e.g. PTSD, depression), common sequelae among young survivors (e.g. low sexual desire, lack of orgasm, alcohol abuse, disordered eating) also reflect alterations in motivation and reinforcement more broadly. This dissertation explores how strongly negative past experiences like sexual trauma affect motivation in the present. First, an fMRI study examined whether neural responses for cues paired with sexual imagery differ for women with and without distressing histories of sexual assault. Additional analyses tested how traits linked to motivation more generally (e.g. extraversion, impulsivity) relate to sexual conditionability. Second, an online survey study investigated mechanisms for the link between sexual victimization and adverse outcomes among women with a variety of sexual violence histories. Parallel mediation models characterized the extent to which individual differences in distress versus impulsivity contribute to motivated behaviors (e.g. sexual desire and activity, problem drinking, disordered eating) after unwanted sexual experiences. By incorporating methods derived from incentive salience models and reinforcement sensitivity theory, these studies seek to align niche sexual constructs with the wider neuropsychological literature on reward.