Gender, Sexual Experience, and the Sexual Double Standard: Evaluations of Female Contraceptive Behavior

The purpose of the present research was to compare men's and women's perceptions of female contraceptive behavior and investigate the relationship between sexual experience and these perceptions. One hundred forty-six predominantly Caucasion males (n = 76) and females (n = 70) were randomly assigned to one of three sexual scenarios in which a male provided the condom in a sexual encounter, a female provided the condom, or no condom was used. They were then asked to rate the female on several behavioral and personality measures and to complete a sexual experience scale. Results showed differences in the way men and women perceived the female target. A positive correlation was also found between sexual experience and more favorable perceptions of the sexually-prepared female.     

Gender Differences in Pain Perception: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy Beliefs

The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which the gender differences in response to the cold pressor test (CPT) are mediated by self-efficacy beliefs. One hundred twelve college undergraduates (69 women and 43 men) engaged in CPT and completed self-report measures of demographic information, physical self-efficacy (i.e., expectations about one's overall physical capabilities), and task-specific self-efficacy (i.e., beliefs about one's ability to cope successfully with the upcoming CPT). In addition, participants provided subjective ratings of pain intensity every 30 s during CPT and were evaluated for tolerance during CPT (up to 4 min). Consistent with past research, men reported lower average subjective ratings of pain intensity and showed higher tolerance for CPT. Path analyses indicated that associations between gender and pain perception were fully mediated by self-efficacy beliefs. Men reported greater physical self-efficacy and task-specific self-efficacy than women did. In turn, higher task-specific self-efficacy ratings predicted increases in tolerance for pain and lower ratings of average pain intensity. Findings indicate that self-efficacy beliefs are one factor that accounts for gender differences in responses to painful stimulation. Future researchers should evaluate conditions under which heightened self-efficacy may be beneficial and harmful, and they should employ experimental designs that incorporate opportunities for use of both communal–interpersonal and individualistic coping strategies in light of possible gender differences in preferred approaches to coping with pain.     

Gender Effects in Couples' Sexual Decision Making and Contraceptive Use

Previous research has demonstrated that men tend to be more influential than women in mixed-sex dyads. The current study was an examination of sex differences in influence among dating couples making two different kinds of sexual decisions. In a laboratory decision-making task, male and female partners wrote their opinions about premarital sex and contraception independently, and then worked together as a couple to write a joint opinion. The results replicated previous findings in that the male partners' responses were more similar to the couples' responses than were the females'. An examination of gender influence in the couples' contraceptive behavior , however, indicated that the female partners were more influential than the males in this arena. Thus the data suggest that while men in general may be more influential than women in couples' decision making, there are specific decision domains in which women have considerable influence. Factors that influence gender effects in sexual decision making are discussed.     

Perfectionism,Type A Behavior,and Self-Efficacy in Depression and Health Symptoms among Adolescents

The current study examined the associations among dimensions of perfectionism, Type A behavior, self-efficacy, distress, and health symptoms in high school students. A sample of 73 high school students (34 boys, 39 girls) completed measures of self-oriented perfectionism, socially prescribed perfectionism, Type A behavior, self-efficacy, depressive symptoms, and psychosomatic symptoms. Correlational analyses found that self-oriented perfectionism was marginally related to Type A behavior. Students with elevated levels of depressive symptoms were also characterized by self-oriented perfectionism, Type A behavior, low self-efficacy, and health symptoms. In addition, health symptoms were linked with low self-efficacy. Simultaneous entry of several variables into a regression analysis found that significant unique predictors of depression were low self-efficacy and elevated self-oriented perfectionism. Similarly, a regression analysis found that low self-efficacy and high self-oriented perfectionism were unique predictors of health symptoms. The findings highlight the distinctions between the perfectionism and the Type A constructs, and support self-regulation models of depression and physical symptoms that include an emphasis on excessive perfectionistic standards and low self-efficacy. We discuss the need for preventive interventions designed for perfectionistic adolescents with low self-efficacy.     

Aggression Toward Gay Men as Gender Role Enforcement: Effects of Male Role Norms, Sexual Prejudice, and Masculine Gender Role Stress

ABSTRACT This study examined sexual prejudice and masculine gender role stress as mediators of the relations between male gender norms and anger and aggression toward gay men. Participants were 150 self-identified heterosexual men who completed measures of adherence to male gender role norms, sexual prejudice, masculine gender role stress, and state anger. Participants then viewed a video depicting intimate relationship behavior between 2 gay men, reported state anger a second time, and competed in a laboratory aggression task against either a heterosexual or a gay male. Results indicated that adherence to the antifemininity norm exerted an indirect effect, primarily through sexual prejudice, on increases in anger. Adherence to the status and antifemininity norms exerted indirect effects, also through sexual prejudice, on physical aggression toward the gay, but not the heterosexual, male. Findings provide the first multivariate evidence for determinants of aggression toward gay men motivated by gender role enforcement.     

Women in Federal Law Enforcement: The Role of Gender Role Orientations and Sexual Orientation in Mentoring

Women have always been under-represented in United States’ law enforcement relative to the population, but women are successful law enforcement officers who bring important skills to the field. Thus, understanding work experiences and the barriers female law enforcement officers face is critical in retaining and promoting women in the field. However, law enforcement is also a masculine, male-dominated occupation causing even greater occupational stress to women through discrimination, exclusion, and harassment (Kakar 2002). The goal of this study was to analyze the relationships among gender role orientations (masculinity and femininity), sexual orientation, and mentoring for female sworn federal law enforcement officers throughout the United States. It was hypothesized that (1) masculine female officers would receive more mentoring, (2) low femininity would enhance masculinity’s effect, (3) sexual minorities would receive less mentoring, negating the beneficial effects of masculinity when the interaction is taken into account, and last, (4) the 3-way interaction between masculinity, femininity, and sexual orientation would uniquely impact mentoring. In the current sample, masculinity was found to positively relate to career mentoring and role modeling whereas sexual orientation was negatively related to career mentoring. The three-way interaction between masculinity, femininity, and sexual orientation also significantly related to career mentoring and role modeling; implications and future directions are discussed.     

Gender Differences in Mental Health: The Mediating Role of Perceived Personal Discrimination

Why is women's mental health inferior to that of men? This study hypothesized that women's mental health is not as good as men's because women perceive more personal discrimination. It was confirmed that women obtained higher scores than did men on a subjective scale of psychological distress. Additionally, women perceived greater personal and group discrimination than did men. Perceived personal discrimination proved to be the more robust predictor of psychological distress. This was evident when results of a mediation analysis revealed that gender differences in subjective distress were mediated by the measure of perceived personal discrimination, but not by the measure of group discrimination.     

The Reverse Double Standard in Perceptions of Student-Teacher Sexual Relationships: The Role of Gender,Initiation, and Power

ABSTRACT

The present study tested the prediction that male teachers are judged more harshly than female teachers for engaging in heterosexual intercourse with a student. One-hundred and eighty-seven adults (116 women, 71 men) evaluated a hypothetical newspaper article describing an alleged student-teacher relationship as part of a 2 (Gender Dyad: Male Teacher/Female Student or Female Teacher/Male Student) × 2 (Initiator: Student or Teacher) between-subjects design. As expected, a reverse sexual double standard was revealed, in which participants judged situations involving male teachers more harshly than they judged situations involving female teachers, but only when the sexual contact was teacher-initiated. Participants also believed that male students received more social benefits from the sexual contact than did female students.     

The Role of Power and Gender in Anger Responses to Sexual Jealousy

Despite a growing interest in intimate conflict, little research has examined the variables that influence anger within an interpersonal context. Using the conflict topic of sexual jealousy, male and female undergraduate students were randomly assigned to high- or low-power conditions prior to listening to an audiotaped conflict between intimates. Analysis of participants' affective responses to the conflict indicated that in spite of no initial differences in anger before hearing the conflict, there was a significant difference between power conditions in postconflict ratings: low-power participants reported more anger than did high-power participants. Similarly, women reported more anger than did men after hearing the conflict despite no preconflict differences. The results are discussed in terms of the influence of power and gender expectations on the anger dynamics of intimate conflict. Of special interest is the extent to which perceptions of power or powerlessness, ostensibly unrelated to the conflict, can shape affective reactions to conflict.     

Blaming the Target of Sexual Harassment: Impact of Gender Role,Sexist Attitudes,and Work Role

This study was conducted to examine factors associated with blaming the target of sexual harassment. Participants' experiences of sexual harassment, sexist attitudes, gender, gender role identity, age, worker or student status, and belief in a just world were included as independent variables. Level of blame was evaluated using a series of 12 vignettes that manipulated the gender of the target and harasser as well as the seriousness of the harassing behavior. The sample comprised 30 female and 32 male workers from two workplaces, whose ages ranged from 18 to 65 (M = 35) years, and 102 female and 18 male university students whose ages ranged from 17 to 40 (M = 21) years. Approximately 70% of the sample were from Anglo Australian background, and 30% from European, Middle Eastern or Asian background. Females experienced more sexual harassment than males did, although the male rate was higher than expected. Although the majority of subjects attributed little blame to the target, males blamed the target of sexual harassment more than females did, and workers blamed the target of harassment more than university students did. Worker status, sexist attitudes, and gender significantly predicted blame for the total sample. Gender-typing increased the blame of the target by males but not by females. Attribution of blame was significantly influenced by worker versus student status, which supports the social psychological perspective that gender-related behavior is context dependent. The findings from this study suggest that organisational culture and environment influence respondents' attitudes to sexually harassing behavior.     

The Psychology of Contraceptive Surprises: Cumulative Risk and Contraceptive Effectiveness1

Two studies investigated young adults' expectations about long-term contraceptive effectiveness. Subjects were told about five hypothetical methods of contraception varying in reported effectiveness, which was expressed in terms of the likelihood of avoiding pregnancy for base periods of 1 year (Experiment 1), 5 years, or 10 years (Experiment 2) of use. For each method, subjects estimated the likelihood that a woman would avoid pregnancy while using it for periods ranging from 1 month to 15 years, and then rated how satisfied they would be with it. For nearly half of the subjects, estimates of cumulative effectiveness did not decline as time period increased. Those subjects who did realize that cumulative effectiveness declined over time estimated rates that declined too slowly for methods of modest and low reliability, and at rates that were too similar for methods differing in effectiveness. Subjects were overly optimistic about effectiveness for time periods longer than the base period, and overly pessimistic about effectiveness for shorter time periods. Not surprisingly given these results, subjects expressed more satisfaction when a method's effectiveness was expressed in shorter base periods. Such faulty understanding of the long-term implications of contraceptive effectiveness information may undermine people's abilities to make informed contraceptive choices.     

Quality of Life among Adolescents in Hong Kong: General and Gender-Specific Effects of Self-Efficacy and Mindfulness

Applied Research in Quality of Life - This study investigated the effects of self-efficacy and mindfulness on the quality of life of Chinese adolescents. The effects of gender, age, and perceived...     

Gender, Social Networks, and Contraceptive Use in Kenya

The social network approach has recently come to aid our understanding of the ongoing fertility transition in developing countries. This study adds to the growing literature in situating the role of geography and interaction with significant others—community and family members—in understanding Kenya's puzzling fertility transition. Findings indicate that, contrary to previous findings that kin networks are conservative and against innovative fertility behavior, the respondent families, especially in the more prosperous Central Province, are supportive of fertility innovation. Community wide networks are not as influential in directing fertility behavior as own family members are. Family members are the ones who bear the burden of raising children and, as such, are the ones on the forefront of encouraging behavior adjustment. Not all of the social networks significantly influenced use of contraception; however, interacting with healthcare and family-planning networks and friends and being advised to use contraception had a positive impact on using contraception in both regions.     

Gender Roles,Power Strategies,and Precautionary Sexual Self-Efficacy: Implications for Black and Latina Women's HIV/AIDS Protective Behaviors

This cross-sectional study tested a conceptual model of women's HIV/AIDS protective behaviors using gender roles, relationship power strategies, and precautionary sexual self-efficacy as predictors in a predominantly Black and Latina community sample of heterosexual women (N = 125). Results revealed no support for the full model, but partial confirmation for several components of the model. Education significantly predicted gender roles, and gender roles and use of direct power strategies were significant predictors of sexual self-efficacy. Most of the participants were married or partnered and were unconcerned about contracting HIV, suggesting that if women perceive that they are at low or no risk, their gender roles, power strategies, and precautionary sexual self-efficacy will be inconsequential to their HIV/AIDS risk reduction practices.     

Sexualized Video Game Avatars and Self-Objectification in Adolescents: The Role of Gender Congruency and Activation Frequency

Little is known about the effects of playing sexualizing video games on adolescent boys’ and girls’ self-objectified body image. Early and middle adolescents (N = 115; M_age = 12.63, SD = 0.85) participated in a between-subjects experiment testing the effect of playing with a sexualized male or female avatar as compared to a control condition. We revealed that playing a video game with a sexualized avatar increased self-objectification among adolescents. This effect occurred regardless of the gender of the adolescent and, thus, did not support the gender congruency hypothesis. In contrast to the activation frequency hypothesis and video game literature on sexualization, the effect of playing with a female sexualized avatar was not moderated by game frequency. Given the adverse consequences of self-objectification in adolescence, the current study results highlight the need for research on how these effects may be countered.     

The Role of Socio-Psychological Determinants in the Sexual Behaviors of Latina Early Adolescents

Although a large body of research has examined the negative outcomes that occur when Latina adolescents engage in sexual activity, relatively little research explores the determinants that may contribute to these behaviors. In the current study, an ecological community psychological approach was used to examine the impact that substance use, sexual self-efficacy, parental communication, normative peer pressure, acculturation, educational aspirations, grades, and gang activity have on adolescent sexual behavior. The sample consisted of 217 participants (mean age of 14.6) who self-identified as Latina from the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area of California in the United States. The results indicate that about a third of the sample had engaged in one or more sexual behaviors. Overall, greater usage of substances was associated with greater numbers of sexual behaviors. Girls who reported engaging in two or more sexual behaviors reported more frequent marijuana and alcohol use. The girls who reported high sexual self-efficacy engaged in few to no sexual behaviors. Additionally, parental communication, normative peer pressure, acculturation, and educational aspirations were unrelated to their sexual behavior. However, the majority of girls who reported receiving good grades also reported no sexual activity. Moreover, girls who reported no sexual behavior also reported no gang activity. The results indicate that a multi-level approach to examining the psycho-social determinants of sexual activity in Latina girls provides a more comprehensive picture of their sexual decision making.     

Sexual Abuse and the Christian Congregation: The Role of Gender in Pastoral Care for Victims

This study investigated the role of gender in the care for victims of sexual abuse within three Swedish Christian denominations. Questionnaires anchored by vignettes illustrating different abuse situations were answered by 421 clerics. The main findings were that female respondents apprehended the described situations as more likely to occur than male respondents did, and that levels of preparedness to offer pastoral care and belief in the likelihood of the situations to occur were higher when a female was the victim or a male was the perpetrator. Denominational differences were found concerning level of personal discomfort when hearing about the abuse.     

Community Disadvantage and Academic Achievement among Hispanic Adolescents: The Role of Familism

Hispanic adolescents experience disproportionately higher dropout rates at the secondary level, and their efforts tend to be further compounded by economic adversity. In considering how to meet the challenges facing this bolstering population, prior research suggests that parental investment, or familism, may increase their academic success. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to examine the association between community disadvantage, measured at the community level, and Hispanic adolescents' academic achievement, in addition to identifying the underlying mechanisms and interactive effects of familism on this association. Based on theories and previous literature, the following hypotheses were tested: (1) that community-level community disadvantage will negatively impact Hispanic adolescents' academic achievement, (2) that familism will mediate the association between community disadvantage and Hispanic adolescents' academic achievement and (3) that familism will also moderate the association between community disadvantage and Hispanic adolescents' academic achievement. Results supported the proposed hypotheses and shed light on the importance of considering the unique needs of Hispanic adolescents in the classroom. Implications and future directions are discussed.