[Genecks]

Do you think that the estrogen levels in women causes them to have overall pleasure-seeking behavior in life, perhaps more than men?

And as always, please keep a civil discussion.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

What sort of pleasure-seeking behavior do you refer to? I don't see how one would reach that conclusion regarding women.

[iNow]

Pleasure seeking is more contingent upon dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, cortisol, and oxytocin. Sex hormones may be mildly correlated, but almost certainly not causative.

[Moontanman]

In women as well as men testosterone is the chemical of pleasure seeking, women who have low or no testosterone levels have little or no sex drive and are very passive. Aggression in both sexes is linked to testosterone. I think you need to be more specific as what "pleasure" seeking behavior you are talking about.

[John Cuthber]

At some level, isn't all behaviour pleasure seeking?

[nec209]

iNow, on 26 June 2010 - 02:24 AM, said:

Pleasure seeking is more contingent upon dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, cortisol, and oxytocin. Sex hormones may be mildly correlated, but almost certainly not causative.

I alway thought pleasure seeking people is lack of dopamine in the brain? In other cases it could be a personality?

In any case if a person is pleasure seeking type it can be very dangerous has the person can get very addicted to drugs or sex or both.

[iNow]

nec209, on 29 July 2010 - 11:28 PM, said:

I alway thought pleasure seeking people is lack of dopamine in the brain? In other cases it could be a personality?

In any case if a person is pleasure seeking type it can be very dangerous has the person can get very addicted to drugs or sex or both.

Nonsense. We're all predisposed toward pleasure... Every single one of us... That's how behaviors get rewarded and activity conditioned. The only real difference is in where we find that pleasure, and how. Some like vanilla, some like chocolate. So the hell what?

[nec209]

iNow, on 29 July 2010 - 11:44 PM, said:

Nonsense. We're all predisposed toward pleasure... Every single one of us... That's how behaviors get rewarded and activity conditioned. The only real difference is in where we find that pleasure, and how. Some like vanilla, some like chocolate. So the hell what?

That is true but some people known to lack dopamine have higher addictive personality.Also some people are more pleasure seekers than others.This may explain why some people have a higher sex drive or harder time to stop drinking or getting of hard drugs.

[iNow]

Yep. Maybe. Now, can you explain what that has to do with the topic under discussion? It appears you've sort of gone walk about on your own little path.

[PhDwannabe]

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Do you think that the estrogen levels in women causes them to have overall pleasure-seeking behavior in life, perhaps more than men?

This is sort of a classic example of using logic when empiricism is needed. Science is the union, the marriage of these two great philosophical traditions--we nail ourselves to the rules of science, we use logical and empirical methods, and in doing so, we get to be not so utterly stupid all the time. Nonetheless, there are certainly questions for which either logic (perhaps more simply, "argument"), or empiricism, is more suited. Consider another question on these message boards: "is homosexuality a mental illness?" Well, I can say with pretty solid certainty, based on a cargo ship full of data: no, it isn't. Nonetheless, those data don't really define our terms for us. The question of what a mental illness is is not something we can directly answer with any kind of measurement device, and that definition is a huge part of the argument. So it's a question that is amenable to argument perhaps as much as it is informed by empirical finding. (Note: I still think the good arguments end up on the side of "no, it isn't," but that's another issue completely.)

So, let's take this question: is there a causal relationship between estrogen level and pleasure-seeking behavior? Look, this is basically an empirical question. What we think about it doesn't really matter a whole lot--we can easily go measure it. It's like asking "do you think that there are more black socks or white socks in that sock drawer over there?" Who the hell cares what I think? Just go look in the drawer! Pleasure-seeking behavior can be defined/operationalized with fairly little controversy, and study designs are available which go far beyond the complexity needed to answer a question like this. Get on a database. Hell, Google it if you don't have that--that has dangers of its own, but it's better than nothing, provided you can sniff out junk fairly well.

OK then... the answer? As far as I know, there isn't a connection--and certainly not a causal one. A cursory search of social science literature didn't turn one up. Find something on the matter? Sweet. Share it and cite it.


Cheers,
DJ

[nec209]

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Do you think that the estrogen levels in women causes them to have overall pleasure-seeking behavior in life, perhaps more than men?

Are you talking about taking hormone drugs? If so yes There are hormone out there one can take to boost sex desire.