Persons who can better communicate and understand the emotions of another person are more likely to have a satisfactory sex life, new research discoveries.
Personal qualities such as self-esteem and autonomy also play a role in sexual pleasure and health, the researchers said.
"Sexual health includes sexual wellbeing and sexual enjoyment is an important role in [which]," said study investigator Adena Galinsky, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "How people interact and their ability to listen to each other and to take the other perspective can really influence the sex they have." [Top 10 the aphrodisiac]
The study analyzed data from approximately 3,200 students, aged 18 to 26, who were interviewed in the third wave of the National Longitudinal Study of adolescent between 2001 and 2002 health.
Study the sexual satisfaction
Respondents answered questions designed to assess levels of autonomy, self-esteem and empathy, with their sexual health and satisfaction. Autonomy is defined as the force necessary to follow personal beliefs, even when they run counter to the wisdom, which usually increases as age adolescents and enter adulthood, said Galinsky. Self-esteem is a belief in the enhancement, which also increases with age. Empathy is the ability to take another perspective, to see things from their angle, to understand and respond to their emotions.
The study found that men were more likely than women declare having orgasms and more or all of the time during sexual intercourse, with 87% of men say, compared to 47% of women in the study. Men were more likely to enjoy giving oral sex to their partner more than women, the study concluded.
"The reality is that the majority of young men really like to engage in activities whose purpose is to give their partner pleasure", Galinsky told LiveScience. "There is a fairly consistent difference between young men and young women."
When the researchers compared the attributes of personality with three measures of sexual satisfaction (frequency of orgasm, level of enjoyment to give and receive oral sex), they found that higher sense of self-esteem, autonomy and empathy levels are associated with sexual pleasure total females, but only empathy had an incidence in men.
Among men, autonomy only a positive correlation to the frequency of orgasm, that only higher while considers itself is linked to the enjoyment of giving oral sex.
Getting emotional in the bedroom
"Our hypothesis is that caring individuals are better meet the needs of the partner and thus initiate a positive feedback cycle,", said Galinsky. "These assets of development can be more important sexual young women since pleasure they help eliminate barriers to sexual communication and exploration," he said, referring to the idea that women are more inhibited in the bedroom.
Interestingly, these recent data reported by Sara Konrath at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science have shown that this type of empathy is abandonment among adolescents and emerging adults, which could have an impact on their sexual satisfaction. Females traditionally score more empathy and lower on self-esteem compared with their male counterparts.
Galinsky and his team continue to study the sexual wellbeing and satisfaction to all points of life, including in adults of middle and older age.
The study was published on 3 June in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
You can follow LiveScience staff writer Jennifer Welsh on Twitter @ microbelover. Follow LiveScience to the latest science and discoveries on Twitter @ livescience and on Facebook.
