Touching behaviors of winners and losers in swimming races

This study compared touching behaviors of swimmers who were winners and losers. The number and location of interpersonal touches given and received by winners and losers of swimming races were recorded. Winners gave and received significantly more touches than losers. Most touches were hands, back, or shoulders, confirming earlier findings for college men and women.     

Perpetuating Stereotypes: A Study of Gender,Family, and Religious Life in Jewish Children's Books

This paper examines award‐winning Jewish children's literature as a medium to explore how religiosity gets constructed differently for men and women. We analyze three decades of winners of the Sydney Taylor Jewish Book Award, a prestigious annual award given by the Association of Jewish Libraries to an outstanding Jewish children's book. We demonstrate how these award‐winning books produce and perpetuate gendered religious stereotypes that associate men with agency and women with communion. We also show how these books construct images of a “domestic Judaism” for women and a “public Judaism” for men and how women have been symbolically annihilated from the titles and central character roles in these books. Drawing on Cecilia Ridgeway's ( 2011 ) gender‐framing perspective, we argue that the gender stereotypes evident in these books matter to society because they produce and enforce gender inequalities in religiousness.     

The social endocrinology of dominance: basal testosterone predicts cortisol changes and behavior following victory and defeat

Past research suggests that individuals high in basal testosterone are motivated to gain high status. The present research extends previous work by examining endocrinological and behavioral consequences of high and low status as a function of basal testosterone. The outcome of a competition--victory versus defeat--was used as a marker of status. In Study 1, high testosterone men who lost in a dog agility competition rose in cortisol, whereas high testosterone men who won dropped in cortisol. Low testosterone men's cortisol changes did not depend on whether they had won or lost. Study 2 replicated this pattern of cortisol changes in women who participated in an experimental laboratory competition, and Study 2 extended the cortisol findings to behavior. Specifically, high testosterone winners chose to repeat the competitive task, whereas high testosterone losers chose to avoid it. In contrast, low testosterone winners and losers did not differ in their task preferences. These results provide novel evidence in humans that basal testosterone predicts cortisol reactivity and behavior following changes in social status. Implications for the social endocrinology of dominance are discussed.     

Gender Differences in Population Versus Media Body Sizes: A Comparison over Four Decades

Mean body mass indices (BMIs, kg/m²)of North Americans aged 18 to 24 collected from 11national health surveys were compared to: Playboycenterfold models, Miss America Pageant winners,andPlaygirl models. The survey samples were representative of themix of different ethnic and racial groups in Canada andthe USA. No racial or ethnic information was availablefor either the Playboy women or the Miss America Pageant winners. Ninety percent of the Playgirlmen were white; 10%, black; 1.5%, Hispanic black; and.8%, American Samoan. From the 1950s to the present,while the body sizes of Miss America Pageant winners decreased significantly and the body sizes ofPlayboy centerfold models remained below normal bodyweight, the body sizes of Playgirl models and youngadult North American women and men increasedsignificantly. The increase in body size of Playgirl modelsappears to be due to an increase in muscularity, whereasthe increase in body size of young North American menand women is more likely due to an increase in body fat. Thus, in the 1990s, the body size andshape of the average young adult North American becameincreasingly different from the ideal being promoted bythe media. Furthermore the difference in male and female body sizes depicted by the media inthe 1990s was huge, whereas the difference between thebody sizes of 18- to 24-year-old North American womenand men was actually quite small. These discrepancies are discussed in relation to the differentsociocultural expectations for the two genders and theincreasing prevalence of body dissatisfaction reportedby both women and men.     

Effects of implicit power motivation on men's and women's implicit learning and testosterone changes after social victory or defeat

Two studies examined interactions of implicit power motivation and experimentally varied victory or defeat in a contest on implicit learning of a visuomotor sequence associated with the contest outcome and changes in testosterone and self-reported affect. In men and women, power motivation predicted enhanced learning (sequence-execution accuracy) after a victory and impaired learning after a defeat. In men, power motivation predicted testosterone increases among winners and decreases among losers, and testosterone decreases mediated the negative effect of power motivation on learning in losers. In women, power motivation predicted postcontest testosterone increases, particularly among losers. In both men and women, self-reported affective states were influenced only by contest outcome and were unrelated to participants' testosterone changes or implicit learning.     

Work centrality and post-award work behavior of lottery winners

Individuals who had won the lottery responded to a survey concerning whether they had continued to work after winning. They were also asked to indicate how important work was in their life using items and scales commonly used to measure work centrality. The authors predicted that whether lottery winners would continue to work would be related to their level of work centrality as well as to the amount of their winnings. Individuals who won large amounts in the lottery would be less likely to quit work if they had relatively greater degrees of work centrality. After controlling for a number of variables (i.e., age, gender, education, occupation, and job satisfaction), results indicated that work centrality and the amount won were significantly related to whether individuals continued to work and, as predicted, the interaction between the two was also significantly related to work continuance.     

THE WILDE ANALYST

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) took on the challenge of teaching us how to live artfully. From the dynamic successes and tragedies of his own life Oscar knew that everything worthy of existence is worthy of art, including its ugliness and suffering. Oscar observed much about human nature, especially his own, in an era when convention was not challenged, knowledge was taught and appearances were everything. For him, “The supreme vice is shallowness.” Society and psychoanalysis can still be honored and shaken by his words. The paradoxical and complex nature of Oscar's insights was as good as any coming from a thoughtful psychoanalyst. After the first two attempts to write about Oscar fell flat, it became clear that I must engage with him and try to match the unsparing commitment to explore his unconscious and interior life. In the process of creating the array of sketches of my psychoanalytic encounters with Oscar, I also found the words to describe what drew me to the field some 20 years ago—the art of psychoanalysis.     

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: spontaneous expressions of medal winners of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games

Facial behaviors of medal winners of the judo competition at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games were coded with P. Ekman and W. V. Friesen's (1978) Facial Affect Coding System (FACS) and interpreted using their Emotion FACS dictionary. Winners' spontaneous expressions were captured immediately when they completed medal matches, when they received their medal from a dignitary, and when they posed on the podium. The 84 athletes who contributed expressions came from 35 countries. The findings strongly supported the notion that expressions occur in relation to emotionally evocative contexts in people of all cultures, that these expressions correspond to the facial expressions of emotion considered to be universal, that expressions provide information that can reliably differentiate the antecedent situations that produced them, and that expressions that occur without inhibition are different than those that occur in social and interactive settings.     

Spirituality and Justice in Schindler's LIST: A Case Study Informed by Karl Barth and Gustav Gutierrez

In this paper I use the life of Oscar Schindler as a case study demonstrating how the Spirit hovers in the midst of lived experience, inviting Schindler to love and justice, all the while honoring whatever form of freedom Oscar Schindler feels the necessity to choose. My question is, “How was it possible to arouse Oscar Schindler's isolated and opportunistic individualism and transform it into a passionate and gratitude filled preferential treatment for the poor and disenfranchised?” The theology and spirituality of Karl Barth and Gustav Gutierrez inform the theological framework for this study.     

Thin Is In? Think Again: The Rising Importance of Muscularity in the Thin Ideal Female Body

Research has documented an increased emphasis on fitness in media targeting women. However, it is unclear whether this emphasis has resulted in increased muscularity in the perceived ideal female body shape. We sought to evaluate whether the ideal female figure has incorporated increased muscularity into the existing ideal body type that already emphasizes thinness. In Study 1, 78 female undergraduates evaluated images of U.S. beauty pageant winners over the past 15 years on dimensions of thinness, muscularity, and attractiveness. Results indicated that muscularity and thinness ratings of pageant winners significantly increased over time. In Study 2, 64 female undergraduates evaluated two different versions of the same image of a model: a Thin Muscular image and a Thin Only image in which the appearance of muscularity was removed through digital editing. When images were presented in pairs, results indicated that participants found the Thin Muscular image more attractive than the Thin Only image. These results suggest that the current perceived ideal female figure includes both extreme thinness and muscularity and that women prefer this muscular thin figure to a solely thin figure. These findings have implications for clinical treatments related to body image, compulsive exercise, and media literacy.     

The microstructural causation hypothesis

I argue against a priori objections to the view that causation may be reducible to some micro-structural process in principle discoverable by physics. I distinguish explanation from causation, and argue that the main objections to such a reduction stem from conflating these two notions. Explanation is the collection of pragmatically relevant, possibly counterfactual information about causation; and causation is to be identified in a necessary a posteriori way with whatever physical processes underwrite our explanatory claims.I am grateful to Frank Jackson, Oscar Manhal, Peter Menzies, Philip Pettit and Huw Price for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Since an earlier draft, I have heard of the death of Oscar Manhal. Oscar did not agree with the line defended here; but it is better defended for his disagreement. He will be greatly missed.     

THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF MEN?

Recently the focus of sexual harassment research on the harassment of women by men has been challenged. Treatments of sexual harassment of men, however, have generally ignored power differentials between the genders. Our analysis predicts that behaviors identified as harassing by men stem from negotiations of gender in the workplace that challenge male dominance, whereas behaviors experienced by women as sexually harassing reinforce female subordinance. Consistent with our predictions, results indicated the following: men are considerably less threatened than women are by behaviors that women have found harassing; men find sexual coercion the most threatening form of harassment; men as well as women sexually harass men; and men identify behaviors as harassing that have not been identified for women. Results also showed signs of backlash among men against organizational measures that address sexual harassment and discrimination against women. Implications for psychological and legal definitions of sexual harassment of men are discussed.     

Traditional vs. nontraditional women and men's perceptions of the personalities and physiques of ideal women and men

Traditional and nontraditional women and men's perceptions of ideal people, in terms of both traits and physiques, were assessed using 80 male and 80 female Caucasian undergraduates as study participants. The data indicated that traditional women and men perceived the ideal male as mesomorphic and as having more instrumental than expressive traits. Nontraditional women and men also favored a mesomorphic physique for the ideal male, but they differed from traditionals in that they saw this mesomorphic male as being androgynous in regard to traits. Concerning the ideal female, traditional and nontraditional women and men preferred an androgynous physique, but they differed in their perceptions of the ideal personality for a woman. Traditional women and men perceived their ideal women as having more expressive than instrumental traits, whereas nontraditional women and men saw their ideal women as being androgynous in regard to traits. The results are discussed within the framework of Bem's gender schema and enculturated lens theories.     

Gender differences in beliefs about the causes of male and female sexual desire

Little is known about the beliefs men and women have about the causes of sexual desire, despite the interpersonal and individual significance of those beliefs. Participants in this study received a definition of sexual desire and answered a set of free-response questions exploring their beliefs about the causal antecedents of male and female sexual desire. The results indicated that more women than men view female (and male) sexual desire as caused by external factors. In addition, both men and women believe that male and female sexual desire have different causes: intraindividual and erotic environmental factors are believed to cause male sexual desire, but interpersonal and romantic environmental factors are believed to cause female sexual desire. Although both men and women view physical attractiveness and overall personality as sexually desirable male and female characteristics, women, but not men, view femininity as a sexually desirable female characteristic, and men, but not women, view social and financial power or status as a sexually desirable male attribute.     

Aspects of Young Children's Perceptions of Gender-Typed Occupations

Perceived competencies of men and women in gender-typed occupations, perceptions about how much money men and women earn in gender-typed occupations, and affective reactions regarding growing up to have gender-typed occupations were examined in 55 primarily White middle-class preschoolers and primary school children. Children (particularly boys) viewed men as more competent than women in masculine occupations, and rated women as more competent than men in feminine occupations. Children believed men earned more than women across occupations, but that men earned more money than women in masculine occupations, and women earned more money than men in feminine occupations. Children's affective reactions to growing up to have gender-role-consistent occupations were more positive than their reactions to having gender-role-inconsistent occupations. Results suggest children perceive differential competencies of men and women regarding gender-typed occupations, and differences in pay for men and women within gender-typed occupations, at ages younger than previously determined.     

Determinants of expectancy of examination results

Abstract.— In a group of undergraduate psychology students, expectancy of examination results was found to be positively related to experienced effort (work put out for the exam) and estimated importance of success for future career, both for men and women. The assumptions that men consider success to be more important for self esteem and future career than women do, and that women consider success to be more important in connection with social acceptance than men do, were not supported. Women were found to have a lower expectancy level than men in spite of there being no sex difference as to experienced effort. It was suggested that women perceive their ability to be lower than men do. In a group of persons who were homogenous as to the importance of success for future career, incentive value of success for social acceptance correlated positively with expectancy for men, but negatively for women.     

Wimpy and undeserving of respect: Penalties for men’s gender-inconsistent success

Results of an experimental study varying the sex of the employee and the gender-type of the job demonstrated that men, as well as women, are penalized when they are successful in areas that imply that they have violated gender norms. But the nature of these penalties differed. When depicted as being successful at a female gender-typed job, men were characterized as more ineffectual and afforded less respect than women successful at the same job or than men successful in a gender-consistent position. Women, in contrast, were more interpersonally derogated and disliked when said to be successful at a male gender-typed job. Regardless of these differing characterizations, both men and women successful in gender-inconsistent jobs were reported to be less preferable as bosses than their more normatively consistent counterparts. These results suggest that success, when it violates gender norms, can be disadvantageous for both men and women, but in different ways.     

The “Best Actress” Paradox: Outstanding Feature Films Versus Exceptional Women's Performances

On the basis of prior research on acting careers, it was hypothesized that exceptional women's performances are less likely to be associated with outstanding feature films than is the case for men. This hypothesis was tested in 2 studies. In Study 1, 2,157 films that received Oscar nominations or awards between 1936 and 2000 were examined, whereas in Study 2, I scrutinized 1,367 films that received awards or award nominations from 7 major professional, journalistic, and critical associations from 1968 to 2000. In both studies, a significant gender discrepancy was found, a differential that persisted after the introduction of a large number of statistical controls and that showed no tendency to diminish over time. The results are discussed in terms of possible explanations and directions for future research.