Attitudes toward sex, arousal, and the retention of contraceptive information

Previous research has suggested that women with a negative emotional orientation toward sexuality (i.e., erotophobia) have difficulty learning and retaining sexually relevant material such as contraceptive information. It has been hypothesized that these women become aroused by this material and that this arousal interferes with their ability to learn it. The importance of this issue led us to conduct the current study. Erotophobic and erotophilic women viewed presentations about contraception while their physiological responses were being monitored. In addition, they were tested on the information contained in the presentation before, immediately after, and again 4-6 weeks after the presentation. The results indicated that the erotophobic women knew less contraceptive information before the presentation and were more aroused by the presentation. This arousal, however, did not interfere with retention of the material. These results are discussed in terms of individual differences in reactions to sexual material and the ability to learn, retain, and use contraceptive information.     

Thinking big: The effect of sexually objectifying music videos on bodily self-perception in young women

The present study investigated the effect of sexually objectifying music video exposure on young women's implicit bodily self-perception and the moderating role of self-esteem. Fifty-six college women of normal weight were either exposed to three sexually objectifying music videos or three neutral music videos. Perceived and ideal body size were measured both before and after video exposure, using horizontally stretched and compressed photographs of the participant's own body in swimming garment. As expected, only women low (but not high) in self-esteem were negatively affected by the sexually objectifying content of the music videos: they perceived themselves as bigger and showed an increased discrepancy between their perceived and ideal body size after video exposure. The neutral music videos did not influence women's bodily self-perceptions. These findings suggest that body image is a flexible construct, and that high self-esteem can protect women against the adverse effects of sexually objectifying media.     

Relationship of body image to breast and skin self-examination intentions and behaviors

Breast self-examinations (BSE) and skin self-examinations (SSE) represent cost-effective and time-efficient approaches to cancer detection. Given their utility, it is important to determine who is likely to perform these behaviors regularly and why. Because BSE and SSE require close examination of one's body, women who are less satisfied and less comfortable with their bodies may perform these behaviors less often. This study sought to determine if a relationship exists between body image and BSE and SSE behaviors and intentions. Ninety-three women completed measures assessing body image, past performance of and future intentions to perform BSE and SSE. Results indicated that body image was related to past performance of SSE. Having greater body-areas satisfaction and more favorable global evaluations of appearance were related to having performed SSE more frequently in the past year. Future research should further examine this relationship utilizing longitudinal designs and more diverse populations.     

Posttraumatic Stress Among Women With Breast Cancer and Their Daughters: Relationship With Daughters' Breast Cancer Screening

Cancer-related posttraumatic stress (PTS) in women with breast cancer, perceived risk of cancer in these women's daughters, and daughters' PTS related to their mothers' breast cancer were tested for relationships to daughters' breast self-examination (BSE) and mammography activity. Daughters' mammography frequency was related to her own PTS, but not to her perceived risk or her mothers' PTS. In contrast, daughters who overperformed BSE had mothers reporting significantly greater PTS than those performing BSE at recommended rates or underperforming BSE. Daughters' BSE and mammography frequency were not correlated. Differing demands related to BSE and mammography, and their relationship to different distress variables are discussed.     

Effects of Message Framing on Breast-Cancer-Related Beliefs and Behaviors: The Role of Mediating Factors

The effects of gain-loss message framing on breast-cancer-related cognitions and behaviors were assessed among 539 women aged 30 to 70 years. The design involved a prebrochure telephone interview, followed by a brochure mailout, and a postbrochure telephone interview. The brochures contained information about breast cancer and the risk of family history. Recommended behaviors were framed to emphasize gains, losses, or were neutral; and statistical risk information was presented either positively or negatively. Measures included demographics, family history, breast self-examination (BSE) performance, BSE intention, self-efficacy in performing BSE, perceived early detection risk of breast cancer, perceived susceptibility to breast cancer, and anxiety about breast cancer. A loss-framed message led to greater positive change in BSE behavior. Interactions between framing effects and variables of issue involvement, perceived early detection risk, and self-efficacy indicated effects on behavior, but not beliefs.     

Social Comparisons of One's Own With Others' Attitudes Toward Casual and Responsible Sex1

College students perceive their risks for negative outcomes from sexual behavior as lower than that of their peers. We examined whether similar biases would occur when undergraduates rated their own, their close friends', and the typical college student's attitudes regarding casual sex and sexual responsibility. Participants rated their own attitudes relative to all others' as the least permissive and most sexually responsible. Close friends' attitudes were rated as less permissive and more responsible than the average college student's. Finally, individuals with unrestricted sociosexual orientations and men attributed more permissive and less sexually responsible attitudes to both themselves and close friends than did individuals with restricted sociosexual orientations and women. These latter effects were absent when rating the typical college student.     

Adopting the Objectifying Gaze: Exposure to Sexually Objectifying Music Videos and Subsequent Gazing Behavior

We investigated the effects of exposure to sexually objectifying music videos on viewers’ subsequent gazing behavior. We exposed participants (N = 129; 68 women, 61 men) to music videos either high in sexual objectification or low in sexual objectification. Next, we measured participants’ eye movements as they viewed photographs of 36 women models with various body shapes (i.e., ideal size model, plus size model) and degree of dress (i.e., fully dressed, scantily dressed, partially clad). Results indicated that sexually objectifying music videos influenced participants’ objectifying gaze upon photographs of women with an ideal size, but not plus size, body shape. Interestingly, that effect neither differed among men and women nor depended upon the models’ degree of dress. Altogether, once primed with sexually objectifying imagery, participants looked at women’s sexual body parts more than they looked at women’s faces.     

Are sexualized women complete human beings? Why men and women dehumanize sexually objectified women

Focusing on the dehumanization of sexually objectified targets, study 1 tested the extent to which objectified and non‐objectified male and female publicity photos were associated with human compared to animal concepts. Results confirmed the hypothesis that, among all targets, only objectified women were associated with less human concepts. This pattern of results emerged for both male and female participants but likely for different reasons. Study 2 directly looked at female and male participants' affinity with sexually objectified women. Results indicated that the more women distanced themselves from sexually objectified women the more they dehumanized them, whereas men's sexual attraction moderated their tendency to dehumanize female targets. In study 3, this latter motivation was operationalized as the activation of a sex goal and showed to trigger man's but not woman's dehumanization of female targets. Overall, the present set of studies show that only sexually objectified women are dehumanized by both men and women but for different reasons. Whereas sexual attraction shifts a men's focus of a female target away from her personality onto her body triggering a dehumanization process, women are more inclined to dehumanize their sexually objectified counterparts the more they distance themselves from these sexualized representations of their gender category. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Impact of Actual and Perceived Changes in Body Weight on Women's Physical Attractiveness

To determine whether small changes in body weight are likely to alter women's physical attractiveness, 100 college students were asked to select the more attractive photograph of 33 young women. Each of these 33 women were photographed twice, separated by an 8-ween interval during which all of them changed weight. These pairs were presented in varied orders to control for the effects of order and side of presentation. All photographs showed women in a standardized pose and attire with their faced masked. Lighter targets were not consistently selected as more attractive though 66% of the pairs of photographs differed in perceived attractiveness. The percentage weight difference between the photographs in each pair did not significantly alter the level of preference for one of the photographs. Nonetheless, photographs did tend to receive higher attractiveness ratings when the targets were perceived as weighing less. The results suggest that attractiveness varies more as a function of perceived than actual weight and that small changes in weight may not have a reliable influence on physical attractiveness.     

Self-Images without Awareness and Projective Methods of Personality Assessment

Ss' responses to tachistoscopic exposures of self-photographs have been suggested as one approach to self-images without awareness. Sixty-three Ss completed a Q sort for themselves and after tachistoscopic exposure of their own and control photographs, for the persons in the photographs. Ss also completed the Structured-Objective Rorschach Test and Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank. The self was sorted most favorably, the control tachistoscopic exposure significantly less favorably, and the self tachistoscopic exposure significantly less favorably than the control. These differences were found to be related to sex and adjustment measured with the Rotter. The SORT correlated insignificantly with Q sort and Rotter.     

Self-Esteem, Erotophobia, and Retention of Contraceptive and AIDS Information in the Classroom

It has been well documented that people with negative emotional reactions to sex (e.g., "erotophobia,""sex guilt") have less knowledge about contraception than do people with more positive reactions. Recent research has suggested that this deficit is not related to an inability to learn the information, but is due at least in part to the fact that erotophobics actively avoid contraceptive information. The current study was designed to examine the role of erotophobia and high self-esteem in resistance to learning sexual information. More specifically it compared pretest and posttest knowledge of contraception and AIDS in high self-esteem and low self-esteem, erotophobia, and erotophilic women in a university class on human reproduction. As expected, high self-esteem erotophobic subjects were less Likely than other subjects to retain contraceptive and AIDS information presented in the class. Implications of this study for contraceptive and AIDS educational strategies are discussed.     

Influence of Church Attendance and Spirituality in a Randomized Controlled Trial to Increase Mammography Use Among a Low-Income, Tri-Racial, Rural Community

Background The influence of church attendance and spirituality on mammography use was studied among Native American, White, and African American women living in a rural county. Methods A randomized trial was conducted to increase mammography use. Women (n = 851) were randomly assigned to receive either an educational program delivered by a lay health advisor or a physician letter and brochure about cervical cancer screening (control group). Church attendance and spirituality were measured at baseline and mammography use was evaluated 12 months after enrollment using medical record review. Results Almost two-thirds of the women reported that they attended church at least once a week, and less than 4% were classified as having low spirituality. Church attendance (P = 0.299) or spirituality (P = 0.401) did not have a significant impact on mammography use. Conclusions Church attendance and spirituality did not impact mammography use.     

Psychological and social characteristics of attenders for breast screening

Abstract

Demographic characteristics, health behaviour and knowledge of breast cancer were assessed in 183 women from a regional breast screening unit and compared with those of 182 women from a breast clinic and 41 control subjects. A questionnaire yielded information on (i) demographic characteristics and cancer-related behaviours including breast self-examination (BSE), use of screening and promptness of presentation of breast symptoms in the clinic group, (ii) the extent and effects of knowledge about breast cancer and (iii) the role of Health Belief Model dimensions. Results showed the screening unit attenders to be significantly older and to be significantly more likely to be from higher social classes. Differences between the groups in health beliefs and knowledge did not remain once the effects of age and social class were partialled out. While attitudes towards BSE and its practice related to health beliefs. only a minority of the women indicated that they practised BSE with any regularity. The results suggest that screening is failing to attract a truly representative sample of the community and raise the possibility that this failure is a consequence of sociological as much as psychological factors.     

Women's Reactions to Miscarriage: The Role of Attributions,Coping Styles,and Knowledge1

This study examined 72 women's retrospectively reported reactions to miscarriage, including depression, stress, and anxiety. The buffering role of women's attributional explanations for the event, the significance of the loss of the baby, coping strategies, and women's knowledge of miscarriage were also assessed. Correlational analyses revealed that women's attributions were tied to their reactions, in that the more women blamed their own character or doctor, the more severely they reacted. Coping strategies accounted for a large portion of the variance (64%), whereby women who used cognitive restructuring as a strategy suffered less adverse reactions than did those who used social withdrawal or wishrul thinking. Women's knowledge before miscarriage, rather than after, accounted for 6% of the variance in their reactions. Examining the interrelations of these variables revealed that the amount of women's knowledge before miscarriage was related to less wishful thinking, and their knowledge after the event was related to less problem avoidance. Women's attributions were also related to their coping strategies: Blaming one's character, behavior, or doctor were positively related to self-criticism and social withdrawal, and negatively related to support from doctors and significant others. The implications of these findings for interventions to facilitate adjustment to miscarriage and future research are discussed.     

Exploitative male mating strategies: Personality, mating orientation, and relationship status

Previous research suggests men are sexually attracted to women displaying cues to sexual exploitability. During human evolutionary history, men’s agreeableness, orientation towards casual sex, and relationship status may have been recurrently associated with greater net benefits of pursuing a sexually exploitative strategy. We hypothesized these three individual differences would predict men’s perceptions of women’s sexual exploitability. Seventy-two men viewed photographs of women and rated their sexual exploitability. Men’s agreeableness, sociosexual orientation, and current relationship status interacted to predict their perceptions of women’s sexual exploitability; among unmated men, the combination of low agreeableness and an orientation toward uncommitted sex was associated with higher perceptions of women’s sexual exploitability. This suggests mechanisms motivating sexually exploitative strategies may depend on an interaction between personality characteristics and situational variables.     

The Goodbye Brochure: Helping Students to Cope With Transition and Loss

This article describes a brochure that has been used by various college personnel in their attempts to help students in coping with transition and loss. The brochure's content is presented, and its development, use, merits, and limitations are discussed.     

Nonverbal Behaviors and Perceptions of Sexual Intentions: Effects of Sexual Connotativeness,Verbal response,and Rape Outcome

Through the exchange of nonverbal and verbal behaviors, a man and a woman on a date negotiate situated identities. However, a woman's nonverbal and verbal behaviors may reflect an identity discrepant from the one she intended to project, leading to miscommunication between men and women regarding the woman's desire for sexual activity. In Experiment 1, subjects read scenarios in which a woman, Mary, engaged in behaviors that were low, moderate, or high in the degree to which they connotated a desire for sex. In addition, they learned that Mary responded to her date's sexual advances either by saying "no," or by slapping him, or they received no information regarding Mary's verbal response. Subjects were also informed that Mary's date either did or did not force her to have sexual intercourse. Subjects perceived Mary more sexually as her behaviors increased in sexual connotation. In addition, they perceived that Mary desired sex more when no information about her verbal response was provided than when she resisted her date's sexual advances. Subjects also rated the woman more negatively when her nonverbal behaviors were incongruent with her responses to her dale's sexual advances. Contrary to previous research, little evidence of victim derogation was obtained. Results from Experiment 2 showed that men and women agreed in their perceptions of a woman whose behaviors connoted a high interest in sex, but that men perceived behaviors low in sexual connotation ore sexually than women. Implications of the data for understanding sexual miscommunication between men and women as well as reactions to rape victims are examined.     

The relation between remembered parental acceptance in childhood and self‐acceptance among young Turkish adults

This study examined the relation between young adults' age and remembrances of parental acceptance in childhood, and their current self‐acceptance. The study was based on a sample of 236 young adults in Turkey (139 women and 97 men). The adult version of the Parental Acceptance‐Rejection/Control Questionnaire for mothers and fathers along with the Self‐Acceptance subscale of the Psychological Well‐Being Scale, and the Personal Information Form were used as measures. Results showed that both men and women tended to remember having been accepted in childhood by both their mothers and fathers. Women, however, reported more maternal and paternal acceptance in childhood than did men. Similarly, the level of self‐acceptance was high among both men and women. However, women's self‐acceptance was higher than men's. Correlational analyses showed that self‐acceptance was positively related to remembrances of maternal and paternal acceptance among both women and men. Results indicated that age and remembered paternal acceptance significantly predicted women's self‐acceptance. Age and remembered maternal acceptance made significant and independent contributions to men's self‐acceptance. Men's remembrances of paternal acceptance in childhood did not make significant contribution to their self‐acceptance. Finally, the relation between women's age and self‐acceptance was significantly moderated by remembrances of paternal acceptance in childhood.