What we do and don't know about sex offenders' intimacy dispositions

Despite the significant role attributed to intimacy deficits in the etiology of sexual offending, current understanding of sex offenders' intimacy dispositions remains limited. The present article reviews the theoretical and empirical literature in order to better define the intimacy dispositions of sex offenders, and understand the role of intimacy in sexual offending. Research on sex offenders evidences a marked fear of intimacy and a low involvement in practices that can lead to intimacy, which suggests a poor inclination for the experience of intimacy. Moreover, scarce available data show that aspects of intimacy increase sex offenders' susceptibility to adopt sexually abusive behaviors. Although research has suggested that intimacy deficits contribute to sexual offending behaviors, no common operationalizable definition of intimacy has yet been put forth. Consequently, our understanding of the components of intimacy and their specific etiological role in interpersonal functioning and in sexual offending lacks theorization and evidence-based research. The present article proposes to answer the following question: what are the intimacy deficits in sex offenders identified in the scientific literature, and what is the role of these deficits in sexually offending behaviors?     

The association between intimacy goals and plans for initiating dating relationships

This research examines the association between the strength of an individual’s intimacy goals in dating and preferences for dating partners, relationship initiation strategies, and contexts in which to pursue dating. Two studies demonstrate that intimacy goal strength positively corresponds with preferring partners who have strong intimacy and are warm and open, similar in attitudes and interests, and securely attached. The strength of intimacy goals also positively corresponds with the perceived use and effectiveness of emotional involvement as a strategy for initiating dating and negatively with meeting potential partners at campus parties. Data collected at a 4‐month follow‐up indicate that a stronger focus on intimacy goals is associated with entering a dating relationship for men, but not for women.     

Life With a Partner with ADHD: The Moderating Role of Intimacy

Adult attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) manifests itself through a variety of symptoms, some of which affect not only occupational and recreational activities but also intimate relationships. Previous findings have focused on the effects of adult ADHD on intimacy and relationships from the ADHD diagnosed person’s point of view. However, spouses of people with ADHD are a neglected population with regard to the effects that ADHD has on their romantic relationships. Our aim was to assess the effects of being married to a spouse with ADHD on marital relationships, and the moderating role of intimacy. We compared healthy spouses of people with ADHD to healthy spouses of healthy adults (M?=?38.23, SD?=?4.78) in their degree of self-reported intimacy and marital satisfaction. Our findings indicate that spouses of individuals with ADHD report significantly lower intimacy and lower marital satisfaction compared to spouses of individuals without ADHD. Moreover, our findings indicate that spousal reports about their degree of intimacy mediate the relationships between their spouses’ ADHD and their marital satisfaction. Results are discussed in relation to the broad implications that adult ADHD has for romantic intimacy. Our research addresses healthy partners married to a spouse with ADHD, suggesting that living with a partner with ADHD behaviors is challenging. ADHD symptoms negatively affect various qualities in the person experiencing them, but of equal importance is the damage occurring to his or her spouse. Implications for future research and recommendations for clinical work are suggested.     

Acquiring Assistance from Others The Effect of Indirect Requests and Relational Intimacy on Verbal Compliance

This research examines the effectiveness of indirect requests in attaining assistance from intimate and nonintimate others. Prior research indicates that people are inclined to make requests using indirect forms. However, help-seeking research has neglected to consider request forms, and research on indirect requests has focused mainly on issues of interpretation. The results of this study indicate that the directness of a request increases request force and also interacts with relational intimacy to influence verbal compliance. Directness is more effective at eliciting verbal compliance at higher levels of intimacy. The experimental findings highlight issues concerning the definition of indirectness and also the utility of merging interpretation and compliance in language research.     

Longitudinal Associations among Parental Acceptance,Familism Values,and Sibling Intimacy in Mexican‐Origin Families

Prospective associations among parent – adolescent acceptance and familism values in early and middle adolescence and sibling intimacy in late adolescence and young adulthood were assessed in 246 Mexican‐origin families. Older sibling gender and sibling gender constellation were investigated as moderators of these associations. Sibling intimacy was stable over time and younger siblings with older sisters reported higher levels of sibling intimacy than those with older brothers. As predicted, stronger familism values were associated with greater sibling intimacy, but this link was evident only for older sisters and for girl‐girl dyads. The links from mother‐ and father‐acceptance to sibling intimacy also depended on the gender constellation of the sibling dyad: Higher levels of maternal warmth were associated with greater sibling intimacy for older sisters and girl‐girl sibling pairs but higher levels of paternal warmth were linked to greater sibling intimacy only for older siblings in mixed‐gender sibling dyads. Findings are consistent with prior research on the role of gender in family relationships but extend this work to encompass the effects of both parents' and siblings' gender, as well as the role of sociocultural values in parents' socialization influences.     

Personal assessment of intimacy in relationships: Validity and measurement invariance across gender

IntroductionIntimacy is central in close relationships and a variety of definitions and instruments exist in scientific literature, making this concept complex to investigate. Furthermore, gender differences were identified in the definition and experience of intimacy.ObjectivesThis study aims to confirm the three-factor structure of the personal assessment of intimacy in relationships (PAIR, Schaefer & Olson, 1981), commonly used in research and marital therapy, developed by Moore et al. (1998) and to examine the measurement equivalence of the scale across gender.MethodA confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on the responses of 313 women and 251 men in committed relationships in a French population. Measurement equivalence of the scale across gender was then conducted with the best-fitting model.ResultsThe results of CFA and post-hoc analyses revealed that the three-factor model revised with 18 items was the best fit to the data: (1) engagement (10 items), (2) communication (5 items), (3) shared friends (3 items). PAIR-18 displayed a lack of metric and scalar invariance across gender but estimated means of latent variables is not very different between the full invariant model and the unconstraint models.ConclusionNevertheless, consideration of gender differences in the construct of intimacy is very important for theoretical research on intimacy in romantic relationships and for the interventions of marital therapists based on intimacy.     

Acquaintances,Lovers, and Friends: Rape Within Relationships1

The research examines offender behavior in 98 cases of male‐female acquaintance rape reported to the police in the United Kingdom. Each rape is defined according to the predominant style of offender behavior: intimacy, aggression, or criminality. Variations in the style of rape behavior are examined as a function of the prior victim‐offender relationship. The level of relationship intimacy between the victim and offender is defined empirically according to 4 variables: time acquainted, degree of familiarity, previous sexual relationship, and previous cohabitation. The results indicate that criminality style behavior is very infrequent in acquaintance rape. At low levels of relationship intimacy, the rape is more likely to be characterized by intimacy, rather than aggression style behaviors. The implications are discussed.     

Differences in Engaging in Sexual Disclosure Between Real Life and Cyberspace Among Adolescents: Social Penetration Model Revisited

To date, relatively few studies have begun to explore adolescents’ sexual self-disclosure in cyberspace. Rare research has taken a close look at differences in adolescents’ sexual self-disclosure occurring in real life and cyberspace. The social penetration model suggests that an individual’s level of sexual disclosure should be in accordance with relationship intimacy in real life. The current study investigated whether the effects of relationship intimacy on adolescents’ willingness to disclose sexual history differ in terms of sex and communication environment (real life vs. cyberspace). A total of 419 Taiwanese adolescents completed a survey about their willingness to communicate on different sexual topics in the contexts of varying levels of relationship intimacy. The results showed that in real life both male and female adolescents showed a parallel relationship between willingness to engage in sexual disclosure and relationship intimacy, supporting predictions according to the social penetration model. However, in cyberspace, male adolescents exhibited a greater willingness to communicate, regardless of degree of relationship intimacy, whereas females revealed a U-shape trend regarding the effect of relationship intimacy on willingness to communicate. These findings indicate that sexual disclosure on the part of adolescents in cyberspace departs from the perspective of the social penetration model.     

Intimacy,sport and young refugee men

This article is about research with a group of young refugee men from Sudan and their relationship to football (soccer) as they resettle in Australia. It provides evidence of the resilience, independence and autonomy that such young refugees possess and what these young men's intimate knowledge of these qualities can teach us. In other words, how can we as researchers learn from these young refugees about how they perform these qualities and how may we accommodate this during ethnographic research and in sports-based intervention programs aimed at empowering such young people? Further, the article explores the role of intimacy in this process by accounting for the role of affective connections on and off the sporting field. The argument is that intimacy can help those involved negotiate the power inequities present in sports-based intervention programs and in associated research.     

Sex-role orientation and intimacy status in men and women

Sex-role orientation based on combined t-ratio/median-split scoring of Personal Attributes Questionnaire data was investigated in relation to intimacy status in a sample of university alumini with an average age of 25 years. There was no significant sex difference in sex-role orientation or social status. As expected, androgyny was associated with the preintimate status in both men and women. Contrary to prediction, androgyny was also associated with the less intimate statuses of merger in men and pseudointimate in women; sex-typing was associated with the most intimate status in both sexes. All sex-typed individuals were involved in long-term, heterosexual partnership varying in level of intimacy.Part of this research was included in a presentation at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Montreal, September 1980. The author thanks Susan Krauss Whitbourne for providing advice and intimacy status ratings for this research.     

Psychological Intimacy in the Lasting Relationships of Heterosexual and Same-Gender Couples

This research focused on the meaning of psychological intimacy to partners in heterosexual and same-gender relationships that have lasted for an average of 30 years. In-depth interviews were used to explore the meaning of intimacy to 216 partners in 108 relationships. The participants were whites, blacks, and Mexican-Americans, with Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant religious backgrounds; they were employed in both blue- and white collar occupations.Psychological intimacy was defined as the sense that one could be open and honest in talking with a partner about personal thoughts and feelings not usually expressed in other relationships. Factors that had a significant role in shaping the quality of psychological intimacy in the last 5 to 10 years of these relationships (recent years) were the absence of major conflict, a confrontive conflict management style between partners, a sense of fairness about the relationship, and the expression of physical affection between partners. Women in same-gender relationships, compared to their heterosexual and gay counterparts, were more likely to report that psychologically intimate communication characterized their relationships. The findings are important for understanding factors that contribute to psychological intimacy in long-term relationships and how the gender roles of partners may shape the quality of psychological intimacy in heterosexual and same-gender relationships.     

实际亲密度对恋人参照效应的影响

为考察实际亲密度对恋人参照效应的影响,采用自我参照研究中的R/K判断范式和实际亲密度与应有亲密度量表对68名（35名男性,33名女性）处于恋爱关系中的被试施测。结果发现：在R反应上,实际亲密度与参照条件交互作用显著,高实际亲密度组表现出恋人参照效应,而低实际亲密度组未表现出恋人参照效应;性别与参照条件交互作用显著,女性整体上表现出恋人参照效应,而男性整体上未表现出恋人参照效应;应有亲密度与参照条件交互作用不显著;在K反应上,所有效应均不显著。研究证明了在自我参照范式中,自我是否呈现出恋人参照效应可能受实际亲密度的影响,并存在性别差异。结果提示,在他人参照效应的研究中,需将实际亲密度和性别变量考虑进来     

The impact of child sexual abuse on adult interpersonal functioning: A review and synthesis of the empirical literature

The many studies that have examined the long-term impact of child sexual abuse (CSA) on adult functioning have primarily focused on the personal distress of survivors, largely ignoring the impact of CSA on interpersonal relationships. This article reviews empirical findings concerning the interpersonal distress of survivors as expressed in their intimate and sexual relationships. First, current conceptualizations of the relationship between CSA and interpersonal relationships are reviewed, with a focus on the theoretical models that appear to have implications for the long-term interpersonal sequelae associated with CSA. This is followed by a review of the research conducted on intimacy within the area of social psychology and a summary of the empirical findings related to intimacy functioning in CSA survivors. A hypothesized typology of intimacy functioning for survivors is suggested. The effects of CSA on three components of sexuality—sexual dysfunctions, underlying psychological components of sexuality, and sexual orientation—are discussed. Finally, the interpersonal issues believed to be most salient for CSA survivors in the therapeutic setting are discussed, along with implications for the client–therapist relationship. Methodological, assessment, and conceptual issues are discussed throughout. Recommendations for future research and clinical endeavors are suggested.     

Enhancing Interpersonal Intimacy in Colombian Gay Men Using Functional Analytic Psychotherapy: An Experimental Nonconcurrent Multiple Baseline Design

A growing body of research suggests that rejection sensitivity, a form of interpersonal guardedness associated with familial rejection and societal bias, is a transdiagnostic risk factor for anxiety and mood disorders in gay men. From a behavioral perspective, rejection sensitivity is conceptualized as avoidance of intimacy as the result of systematic social punishment of vulnerable behaviors. Despite the implications of rejection sensitivity for psychological well-being, clinical psychology lacks specific behavioral interventions for emotional intimacy at the level of the individual. Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) is a therapeutic approach developed to enhance interpersonal behaviors that promote intimacy and closeness through identification of, and contingent responding to, clinically relevant behaviors.A nonconcurrent between-participants design examined the effectiveness of 4 to 8 sessions of FAP on reducing intimacy-avoiding behaviors and increasing intimacy-promoting behaviors in three Colombian gay men.FAP implementation yielded significant increases in intimacy promoting behaviors (β = 65.65, S.E. = 11.48, p = .0004) with a large effect size calculated by the between-case standardized mean difference (BC-SMD (17.01) = 1.66, CI [0.69–2.73]). The increase in intimacy-promoting behaviors occurred without evidence for reduction or elimination of intimacy-avoiding behaviors.Recommendations for future research include (1) the implementation of longitudinal intensive studies to capture participants' out-of-session behavioral changes and (2) further research to determine FAP’s effectiveness for increasing intimacy-promoting behaviors among other sexual or gender minority individuals.     

Traditional gender role beliefs and individual outcomes: An exploratory analysis

The results of a survey administered to 806 undergraduate students serve as the basis for analyzing the relationships among traditional gender roles, same-sex intimacy, and homophobia. High levels of homophobia and low levels of intimacy were found among those who believe strongly in the traditional roles. Previous research has shown both homophobia and a lack of intimacy to be harmful to individuals and for society. The present findings may, therefore, constitute empirical evidence of the negative effects of gender roles. Sex differences found in the survey results also support this contention. A general model of the consequences of traditional gender role beliefs for those who hold these views is also speculated.     

Intimacy and Complicated Grief among Chinese Elders Having Lost their Spouses: Mediating Role of Meaning Making

This study aims to investigate the mediating role of meaning making in the relationship between intimacy and complicated grief among bereaved elders. A sample of 352 bereaved elders in rural China participated in the study. Both the linear and quadratic effects of meaning making illustrated a model that mediated the effect of intimacy on complicated grief. Essentially, findings revealed that only high levels of meaning making predicted low levels of complicated grief. This study thereby supplements existing research about meaning-making theory.     

Predictors of alcohol consumption on dates and sense of intimacy

The drinking culture in Western societies infiltrates many aspects of life, including early romantic relationships. This study investigated factors that predict drinking on dates and the impact of date drinking on feelings of intimacy. Regression analyses of questionnaire data revealed that expectancies, general drinking tendencies, and partner's drinking as well as their interactions with gender and ethnicity contributed to explaining alcohol consumption on dates. Intimacy was significantly predicted by alcohol usage on dates, but the effects of drinking by self and partner varied by gender. Women's own drinking positively predicted their sense of intimacy, but their partner's drinking was linked to decreased intimacy. Men's reports showed significant effects but in the opposite direction. The Discussion section considers implications for dating and future research.     

Friendship Intimacy Exchange Buffers the Relation between ADHD Symptoms and Later Social Problems among Children Attending an After-School Care Program

The friendships of children displaying symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been understudied, particularly in comparison to the domain of peer rejection. This study tested whether friendship intimacy exchange buffers the prospective relation between ADHD symptoms and social problems 1 year later in a sample of children attending a community-based after-school program. Children (N?=?131; 53 % boys; 66 % African American) ranging from 5 to 13 years of age participated in this study. At baseline, children reported on friendship intimacy exchange with their identified best friend, and program staff rated children on ADHD symptoms and social problems. Staff ratings of children’s social problems were collected again 1 year later. Multiple regression analyses indicated that, after controlling for demographic variables and baseline social problems, friendship intimacy exchange significantly moderated the association between ADHD symptoms and social problems at the one-year follow-up. Specifically, the relation between ADHD and social problems was no longer significant for children reporting high levels of friendship intimacy exchange. This moderation was not further qualified by either child age or sex, although boys were more likely than girls to report low rates of friendship intimacy exchange. These findings indicate the importance of friendship intimacy for children displaying ADHD symptoms, who often experience significant peer problems. Friendship quality may be a promising target for prevention and intervention efforts in mitigating some of the long-term social problems associated with ADHD symptomatology, and future research is needed to extend these findings to other domains of friendship quality and clinical samples of children with ADHD.     

Taiwanese and American mothers' goals and values for their children's futures

Cross-cultural research on parents' socialization goals and practices with young children has increasingly shown that parents promote aspects of both independence and interdependence in their children. However, few studies have examined parents' long-term goals for their children's futures, which may be equally or more influential than short-term socialization goals on children's development. This study compared long-term goals and values for young children in a sample of 201 mothers from two industrialized countries: Taiwan and the United States. Six dimensions of long-term goals and values were measured: agency and self-direction, power and achievement, intimacy and enjoyment, conformity and tradition, family relatedness, and benevolence and universalism. Controlling for maternal education, there were no group differences in the importance attached to agency, benevolence, and family relatedness: Both groups attached highest importance to agency and benevolence, and considered family relatedness much less important. Differences were found in importance attached to intimacy, conformity, and power: Although both groups highly valued intimacy, European American mothers valued intimacy more than Taiwanese mothers; and Taiwanese mothers attached greater importance to conformity and power. All dimensions were positively correlated across groups, and only three correlations differed in their magnitude between the groups: Agency and conformity, agency and intimacy, and conformity and universalism, all of which were more strongly associated among Taiwanese than among European American mothers. Among Taiwanese mothers, maternal education was positively related to agency, intimacy, conformity, benevolence, and power. Among European American mothers, more educated mothers attached less importance to conformity than less educated mothers. This study demonstrates that Taiwanese and European American mothers' long-term goals for their children include aspects of both independence and interdependence, and extends findings of prior research focusing only on short-term goals. These findings suggest that parents' goals may differ depending on the child's age (short-term or long-term), and underscore the importance of examining social context when comparing parents' goals across cultures.