KINDS OF HORMONAL EFFECTS ON BEHAVIOR - NEW VIEW

Traditional views of hormone-behavior interactions have suggested that there are two general kinds of hormonal effects on behavior, organizational effects and activational effects. It is proposed here that there really are three, not two, distinct categories of hormonal effects in behavioral situations. The addition to the usual dichotomy comes from a division of activational effects. One proposed category is called behavioral effects of the baseline hormonal state: it refers to the effects of the hormonal condition before exposure to relevant exciting stimuli on the behavioral responses to those stimuli. The second proposed category includes what are called feedback effects on behavior. These are the behavioral consequences of there being hormonal responses to experience. Supporting evidence is reviewed, and the implications of the proposed distinction for the interpretation and generation of data and for clinical practice are discussed. © 1979.