A DUAL-IDENTITY FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING LESBIAN EXPERIENCE

The diverse life experiences of contemporary lesbians are shaped by women's differing ties to two social worlds, the majority heterosexual society and the minority subculture of the lesbian or sexual-minority world. This article presents a detailed conceptual analysis of a dual-identity framework that emphasizes lesbians' simultaneous affiliations with both lesbian and mainstream/heterosexual communities. The usefulness of this approach is discussed, with emphasis on implications for understanding individual differences in exposure to gay-related stress and mental health. Results from a survey of 116 lesbians showed that scores on measures of Lesbian Identity and Mainstream Identity were not significantly correlated with each other. Both lesbian and mainstream identities were significantly related to lesbians' reported experiences of discrimination, feelings of internalized homophobia, and life satisfaction. Limitations of the dual-identity framework and suggestions for future research are considered.     

THE EXPERIENCE OF FEMINISM

For this Presidential Address, Fellows of Division 35 were surveyed by means of an open-ended questionnaire about their experience of feminism. The narrative data of a sample of the 51 replies received were analyzed using thematic analysis techniques adapted from an existential phenomenological method. Participants shared many themes, indicating that the experience of feminism can be defined through reports of its lived experience and that this experience changes over time.     

THE VISUAL EXPERIENCE OF CAUSATION

The thesis that we can visually perceive causal relations is distinct from the thesis that visual experiences can represent causal relations. I defend the latter thesis about visual experience, and argue that although they are suggestive, the data provided by Albert Michotte's experiments on perceptual causality do not establish this thesis. Turning to the perception of causality, I defend the claim that we can perceive causation against the objection that its arcane features are unlikely to be represented in experience.     

THE RELATIONSHIPS OF COHABITING LESBIAN AND HETEROSEXUAL COUPLES: A COMPARISON

The relationships of cohabiting lesbian couples and cohabiting heterosexual couples were compared on three dimensions—Durability, interdependence, and Equality. The lesbian relationships tended to be somewhat less durable and interdependent but more equal. Reasons for these differences are discussed.     

EXPANDING THE CONTEXT OF UTILITY: THE STRATEGIC IMPACT OF PERSONNEL SELECTION

Others have demonstrated that traditional applications of the Brogden-Cronbach-Gleser (BCG) selection utility formula are deficient in responding to the financial context of managerial decisions (Boudreau, 1983a, 1983b; Cronshaw & Alexander, 1985, 1991). We demonstrate that traditional estimates of selection utility also fail to reflect the strategic context faced by managerial decision makers. We modify the traditional BCG model to yield an estimate of total utility derived from human resources ( U_total ) that can be directly compared to firms' strategic need at a particular point in time ( U^target )-Further, we demonstrate that, while strategic need is rarely constant over time, the capacity of a selection system to meet that need is also likely to change as r_xy and SD_y change over time. Re-examination of what is important to strategic human resource decision makers (selection utility vs. total utility and strategic need) and changing selection system contributions over time yields a more realistic view of how firms benefit from personnel selection.     

THE EXPERIENCE OF HOME AND THE SPACE OF CITIZENSHIP

I argue that, although we are inherently intersubjective beings, we are not first or most originally “public” beings. Rather, to become a public being, that is, a citizen—in other words, to act as an independent and self‐controlled agent in a community of similarly independent and self‐controlled agents and, specifically, to do so in a shared space in the public arena—is something that we can successfully do only by emerging from our familiar, personal territories—our homes. Finding support in texts from philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences, I construe the claim that citizenship is a developed stance as a spatial issue. I conclude that a state (or, for that matter, a philosophy) that takes the human being to begin as an isolated individual agent fails to recognize the essential spatial relationships on which we depend—namely, those arising through our way of being‐at‐home in the world; and, as a result, such a stance not only misconstrues the parameters on which citizenship is itself possible but also risks developing a social situation that encourages behaviors we see in the agoraphobic—namely, the behaviors of alienated and fundamentally homeless human beings.     

EXPANDING THE MOTHER-CHILD PARADIGM

Reliance on the mother–child dyad as the primary context for under–standing child development has caused fathers to be underrepresented in published research on child development and developmental psychopathology. In order to investigate whether this pattern was also evident in the work of future psychologists, we reviewed Dissertation Abstracts from 1986 through 1994. Results showed that fathers were the focus of significantly fewer dissertation studies (10.5%) than were mothers (59.5%) or both parents (30.0%). We argue that essentializing the mother–child bond is a political philosophy about the roles of men and women that places the discipline of psychology at risk for inadvertently becoming an apologist for the neoconservative political right. Specific suggestions for revising graduate training are presented. The social policy implications for continuing this trend into the next generation of psychologists are discussed.     

COPING WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF RAPE

The coping strategies that a victim of a rape engages in can have a strong impact on the development and persistence of psychological symptoms. Research provides evidence that victims who rely heavily on avoidance strategies, such as suppression, are less likely to recover successfully than those who rely less heavily on these strategies. The present study utilized structural path analysis to identify predictors of avoidance coping following rape and examined factors in the assault itself (e.g., force, alcohol use), sequelae of the assault (e.g., self-blame, loss of self-worth), and social support as potential direct and indirect predictors of avoidance coping. From a sample of 1,253 university women, the responses of 216 women who endorsed an experience of rape were examined. Results suggested that sequelae of the assault such as feelings of self-blame and negative reactions received from others are potentially important predictors of avoidance coping. Implications of the results for future rape recovery research are discussed.     

THE ADMISSIBLE CONTENTS OF VISUAL EXPERIENCE

My purpose is to take a close look at the nature of visual content. I discuss the view that visual experiences have only existential contents, the view that visual experiences have either singular or gappy contents, and the view that visual experiences have multiple contents. I also consider a proposal about visual content inspired by Kaplan's well known theory of indexicals. I draw out some consequences of my discussion for the thesis of intentionalism with respect to the phenomenal character of visual experience.     

CORRELATES OF RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION IN LESBIAN COUPLES

This study broadens the construct of intimate relationships to include the experience of lesbian couples. Various psychological variables were assessed in both partners of 275 lesbian couples who considered themselves to be dual career. Because of the paucity of information on lesbian relationships in the literature, considerable attention is first given to describing this sizable sample. Individual and couple scores on each variable were correlated with relationship satisfaction scores. Among individuals, role conflict and personal autonomy were found to correlate negatively with relationship satisfaction, whereas dyadic attachment, power, intimacy, self-esteem, and life satisfaction were all positively correlated with relationship Satisfaction. Although career commitment was not correlated with relationship satisfaction among individuals, differences between partners'levels of career commitment correlated negatively with each partner's relationship satisfaction. The findings counter extant stereotypes regarding lesbian relationships and provide a more accurate basis for developing an heuristic model of intimate relationships among women.     

BLURRED VISION AND THE TRANSPARENCY OF EXPERIENCE

Abstract:  This paper considers an objection to intentionalism (the view that the phenomenal character of experience supervenes on intentional content) based on the phenomenology of blurred vision. Several intentionalists, including Michael Tye, Fred Dretske, and Timothy Crane, have proposed intentionalist explanations of blurred vision phenomenology. I argue that their proposals fail and propose a solution of my own that, I contend, is the only promising explanation consistent with intentionalism. The solution, however, comes at a cost for intentionalists; it involves rejecting the transparency of experience, a doctrine that has been the basis for the central argument in favor of intentionalism.     

PATTERNS OF EXPERIENCE AND THE ACQUISITION OF CONSERVATION OF LENGTH

The effects of five procedures on the acquisition of conservation of length were studied. A Müller-Lyer illusion was used to induce apparent changes in length in the test- and practice-situations. Two procedures involved practice on addition-subtraction, one a progressive increase in the strength of the Müller-Lyer illusion, and one the anticipation of the outcome of displacements of the objects. A fifth procedure was a composite of the other four. The results showed some acquisitions in all groups, with highest frequency in the anticipation group, and lowest in the increase-in-illusion group.     

THOUGHTS ON THE PSYCHOBIOLOGY OF RELIGION AND THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF ARCHETYPAL EXPERIENCE

Abstract. There is good reason to suppose that religious belief and ritual are manifestations of the archetypal blueprint for human existence encoded in the genetic structure of our species. As a consequence, religion has become a focus of study for psychobiologists and neuroscientists. However, scientific explanations of religious experience do not "explain away" such experience nor are they substitutes for the experience itself. On the contrary, scientific discoveries may be seen as corroboration of religious insights into the unus mundus , the essential oneness of all experience, which links human nature with the nature of the cosmos.