Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1977, Vol. 86, No. 1, 65-74 A Test of Reciprocal Inhibition: Are Anxiety and Sexual Arousal in Women Mutually Inhibitory? Peter W. Hoon, John P. Wincze, and Emily Franck Hoon Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada The purpose of this investigation was to test Wolpe's prediction that autonomic sexual and anxiety arousal states are mutually inhibitory. Using a new physio- logical measure of female sexual arousal (vaginal blood volume), changes were compared during erotic video stimulation following anxiety and control stimulus preexposure and during anxiety and control stimulation following erotic stimulus preexposure. Consistent with reciprocal inhibition theory, when women were sexually aroused by erotic preexposure, anxiety arousal inhibited sexual arousal more rapidly than did an attention control stimulus. However, contrary to reciprocal inhibition theory, women became more rapidly aroused sexually fol- lowing anxiety preexposure than following neutral preexposure. In the case of heart rate, changes were compared during erotic and neutral stimulation follow- ing anxiety preexposure and during anxiety arousal following erotic and neutral preexposure. Consistent with the literature to date, there were no heart rate changes that could be attributed to differential preexposure. Taken together, the results do not support Wolpe's reciprocal inhibition theory but do suggest a context interpretation: The way in which sexual and anxiety arousal states interact with each other may depend on the context in which subjects perceive the stimuli that generate these respective arousal states. The clinical implica- tions of the findings were discussed. To provide the context for the experiment to be described, let us briefly review Wolpe's original definition of reciprocal inhibition and his use of the construct in clinical applica- tions. Wolpe (1958) defined reciprocal inhibi- tion as follows: If a response antagonistic to anxiety can be made to occur in the presence of anxiety-provoking cues This work was made possible by grants from the Canada National Research Council and from Carl Abbott of the Dalhousie Medical School. John Wincze is currently at the Department of Psychiatry, Brown University School of Medicine, and at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Provi- dence, Rhode Island. Emily Franck Hoon is cur- rently at the Psychology Department, Nova Scotia Hospital, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. The authors wish to express their appreciation to Frances Moriarity, Mary Lynch, Sandy Hodson, and Brenda Van Zoost, who assisted with data reduction and manuscript preparation. Requests for reprints should be sent to Peter Hoon, Psychological Services Center, Dalhousie Uni- versity, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4J2. so that it is accompanied by a complete or partial suppression of the anxiety responses, the bond be- tween the stimuli and the anxiety responses will be weakened, (p. 71) This definition was based on Wolpe's work with cats, which was aimed at determining ways anxiety and avoidance behavior might be reduced. Cats were originally conditioned via shock to display intense fear behavior in an experimental cage. When they were fed in this cage, Wolpe observed that the behavioral correlates of anxiety decreased. Drawing on Hull (1943), Wolpe reasoned that the ensuing reduction of the hunger drive created a measure of conditioned inhibi- tion of the anxiety response and a subse- quent weakening of the habit of responding with anxiety to the original cues. When Wolpe (1958) went on to apply the reciprocal inhibition construct to his innova- tive clinical systematic desensitization proce- dure, he began to conceptualize reciprocal inhibition as a construct that was operative 65