An economics-based approach to personality and sex

Building from that discussion, we derive specific implications for the link between the Big Five personality traits and sexuality

Openness to experience reflects the degree to which a person is open to change, variety, intellectual stimulation, and new cultural experiences. Persons with a higher degree of openness tend to be characterized by fantasy, esthetics, and ideas.

Thus, personality influences the utility from sex through sugar daddy arizona how the person behaves in a sexual relationship

Conscientiousness reflects the degree to which a person is willing to comply with conventional rules, standards, and norms. Persons with a higher degree of conscientiousness tend to be characterized by order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, and deliberation.

Agreeableness reflects the degree to which a person needs pleasant and harmonious relations with others. Persons with a higher degree of agreeableness tend to be characterized by trust, straightforwardness, cooperativeness, altruism, compliance, modesty, and tender-mindedness.

Neuroticism (emotional instability) reflects the degree to which a person experiences the world as threatening and beyond his or her control. Persons with a higher degree of neuroticism tend to be characterized by anxiety, angry hostility, psychological distress, self-consciousness, impulsiveness, and vulnerability.

It is important to note that the Big Five not only influence how a person, in general, feels about the world. The Big Five are also dispositional traits influencing the overall style of the person’s adjustment to and engagement of the social world (Buss 1996; Goldberg 1981; McAdams and Pals 2006; Nettle 2006). These traits describe the degree to which the person is able to solve social adaptive problems through communication, cooperation, trust, stability, and dominance.

Similarly, economists emphasize that personality traits play dual roles (Borghans et al. 2008). On the one hand, they can be a source of pleasure, i.e., they influence the utility a person derives from social relationships. On the other hand, personality traits can be viewed as capacities and constraints in the choices the person makes. These choices, in turn, have consequences for the quality of social relationships.

At issue is how personality traits influence sexuality. In what follows, we first provide a general discussion on the transmission mechanisms through which personality may have an effect on sexuality. The discussion is developed within an economics-based approach to integrate this psychological topic into the analytical framework of economics and, in particular, to relate it to family economics.

The dual role of personality also applies to sexuality. On the one hand, personality can influence how much a person enjoys sex. Thus, from the viewpoint of economics, personality has an influence on the utility a person derives from sex. Personality can be seen as a parameter that shapes the utility functions of people. Footnote 1 To the extent people differ in their personality, they will have heterogeneous preferences for sex. Depending on personality, sex will be of higher utility for some people than for others.

On the other hand, personality is a parameter shaping a person’s behavior in a sexual relationship. This behavior has an influence on the quantity and quality of sex and, hence, on the extent of sexual fulfillment in the relationship. The person’s behavior in a sexual relationship is important for at least three reasons. First, it influences communication and information sharing about sexual preferences. Second, it influences how dissonant preferences of the partners are handled. Third, it influences how commitment problems are solved.

Sexual relationships can suffer from information asymmetries (Rainer and Smith 2012). If partners have incomplete information about each other’s needs and desires, they may fail to coordinate on their preferences resulting in a suboptimal sex lifemunication helps partners reduce incomplete information about their sexual preferences. By talking and listening, partners can share information about each other’s preferences for sexual practices, frequency of intercourse, or timing of orgasm. This may allow them to find sexual activities working best for them and, hence, resulting in higher mutual sexual satisfaction. However, successful sexual communication requires communication skills, and these skills depend on the partners’ personality traits. Personality influences a person’s willingness to talk about own preferences and to listen to the partner. Moreover, it has an influence on whether the style of communication is characterized by warmth and empathy or by hostility and impulsiveness.