Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6, Canada.
Child and Youth Psychiatry, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Arch Sex Behav. 2023 Oct;52(7):2939-2962. doi: 10.1007/s10508-022-02360-1. Epub 2022 Aug 12.
Sexual orientation is a core aspect of human experience and understanding its development is fundamental to psychology as a scientific discipline. Biological perspectives have played an important role in uncovering the processes that contribute to sexual orientation development. Research in this field has relied on a variety of populations, including community, clinical, and cross-cultural samples, and has commonly focused on female gynephilia (i.e., female sexual attraction to adult females) and male androphilia (i.e., male sexual attraction to adult males). Genetic, hormonal, and immunological processes all appear to influence sexual orientation. Consistent with biological perspectives, there are sexual orientation differences in brain development and evidence indicates that similar biological influences apply across cultures. An outstanding question in the field is whether the hypothesized biological influences are all part of the same process or represent different developmental pathways leading to same-sex sexual orientation. Some studies indicate that same-sex sexually oriented people can be divided into subgroups who likely experienced different biological influences. Consideration of gender expression in addition to sexual orientation might help delineate such subgroups. Thus, future research on the possible existence of such subgroups could prove to be valuable for uncovering the biological development of sexual orientation. Recommendations for such future research are discussed.
性取向是人类经验的核心方面，理解其发展对于心理学作为一门科学学科至关重要。生物学视角在揭示促成性取向发展的过程方面发挥了重要作用。该领域的研究依赖于各种人群，包括社区、临床和跨文化样本，通常侧重于女性的女性恋（即女性对成年女性的性吸引）和男性的男性恋（即男性对成年男性的性吸引）。遗传、荷尔蒙和免疫过程似乎都对性取向有影响。与生物学视角一致，大脑发育存在性取向差异，有证据表明，类似的生物影响适用于所有文化。该领域的一个悬而未决的问题是，假设的生物影响是否都是同一过程的一部分，还是代表导致同性性取向的不同发展途径。一些研究表明，同性性取向的人可以分为可能经历不同生物影响的亚组。除了性取向之外，考虑性别表达可能有助于描绘这些亚组。因此，对这些亚组可能存在的研究可能有助于揭示性取向的生物发展。讨论了对这种未来研究的建议。
