Experimental pain thresholds influenced by sex of experimenter

Thresholds for pressure pain were tested in 64 adult human subjects (age: M=22.0 yr., SD=7.5). The subjects were young adults drawn from a student population. They were divided into two groups of men and two groups of women, with 16 participants in each group. A female experimenter tested one group of men and a male experimenter tested the other group. The women were tested in a similar way by an experimenter of the same sex for one group and the opposite sex for the other group. The two experimenters were dressed in a manner that emphasised their gender roles. The men tested by a female experimenter showed a higher average pain threshold than the men tested by a male experimenter, but there was no difference in the average pain thresholds of the two groups of women.     

The effects of sexual and/or aggressive film exposure on helping, hostility, and attitudes about the sexes

After viewing an aggressive, sexually aggressive, erotic heterosexual, or control film, 129 females and 135 males expressed their willingness to help and hostility toward the male or female experimenter. Males extended the least help to the experimenter following the aggressive film and expressed more positive affect than females. Erotophilic males expressed slightly less hostility toward a female than a male experimenter. Erotophiles expressed more positive attitudes toward women and toward men after viewing either the rape film shown by a male experimenter or the erotic film shown by a female experimenter, compared to erotophobes. Among erotophobes, these two experimental conditions generally produced the most negative effects on general attitudes about the sexes. Affective responses to sex variations in dominant status and to aggressivity were employed to provide explanations for these results.     

“May I present you: my disgust!” – Declared disgust sensitivity in the presence of attractive models

Disgust sensitivity differs among men and women, and this phenomenon has been observed across numerous cultures. It remains unknown why such sex differences occur, but one of the reasons may relate to differences in self-presentation. We tested that hypothesis in an experiment comprising 299 participants (49% women) randomly allocated into three groups. Each group completed the Three Domains Disgust Scale (TDDS) and rated how disgusting they found olfactory, visual, gustatory, and tactile disgust elicitors either when a male experimenter was present, a female experimenter was present, or no experimenter was present. We hypothesised that male participants in the female experimenter group would declare decreased levels of disgust sensitivity, and female participants in the male experimenter group would declare increased levels of disgust sensitivity. Results showed that despite sex differences in pathogen and sexual disgust, attractive experimenters did not evoke any differences in declared disgust across groups with one exception–both men and women self-presented as more sensitive to sexual disgust in the presence of the female experimenter. We discuss our findings in the light of evolutionary and social theories.     

Gender and the self-presentation of academic achievement

Two experiments were conducted in which first-year male and female subjects (75% white; 25% minorities) at a highly selective liberal arts college predicted their first-semester grade point averages (GPAs). The first experiment varied whether predictions were given publicly or privately when an incentive for accuracy was either present or absent. Whereas the actual GPAs obtained by women did not differ from those obtained by men, women predicted that they would receive lower GPAs than men predicted, but only in the public condition. Whether incentive was present or absent did not affect predictions. The second experiment varied whether predictions were given publicly or privately as well as the perceived achievement of the experimenter. Once again, women's actual GPAs did not differ from men's. However, women predicted that they would receive lower GPAs than men predicted, but only when their estimates were given publicly to a low-ability experimenter. Although previous research has concluded that gender differences on performance estimates is attributable to a lack of confidence among women, these results suggest that the gender difference may be (at least partly) attributable to self-presentational style. It appears that women in this study adopted a modest self-presentational style that was motivated by attempts to protect the self-esteem of the experimenter.We are especially grateful to Rob Abel, David McGill, and Melinda Varn for their help in data collection.     

Physical/verbal aggression: Sex differences in style1

Two studies exploring the use of physical/verbal aggression are reported, the first using women and the second using men as subjects. Both studies allowed subjects to choose between and control the intensity of two response modes: verbal aggression (insults) and physical aggression (electric shock). Aggressive style was investigated over two levels of arousal, sex of experimenter, and sex of provocateur-victim. Results indicated that women aggressed discriminatively in the verbal mode as a function of their arousal, while men were capable of aggressing discriminatively in both the verbal and physical modes. Men who had been disagreed with and punished by a female victim-provocateur in the presence of a male experimenter or by a male victim in the presence of a female experimenter demonstrated high levels of physical aggression compared to the other groups.     

Bodies and occlusion: Item types,cognitive processes,and gender differences in mental rotation

The aim of the current study was to reexamine previous findings in which the magnitude of the male advantage in mental rotation abilities increased when participants mentally rotated occluded versus nonoccluded items and decreased when participants mentally rotated human figures versus blocks. Mainly, the study aimed to address methodological issues noted on previous human figure mental rotations tests as the items composed of blocks and human body were probably not equivalent in terms of their cognitive requirements. Our results did not support previous research on embodied cognition as mental rotation performance decreased among both men and women when mentally rotating human figures compared to block items. However, for women, the effect of occlusion was decreased when mentally rotating human figures. Results are discussed in terms of task difficulty and gender differences in confidence and guessing behaviour.     

Gender, social class, and the subjective experience of aging: self-perceived personality change from early adulthood to late midlife

This study explored the applicability of previous research (obtained with groups of college-educated women) about the subjective experience of aging in midlife to men and less-educated people. Two-hundred fifty-nine men and women who graduated from a public high school in 1955-1957 retrospectively assessed their feelings of identity certainty, confident power, generativity, and concern about aging for their 60s, 40s, and 20s. Participants reported higher levels of identity certainty, confident power, and concern about aging at each age, and a leveling off of generativity in their 60s. There were some gender and social class differences. Although men and women recalled the same trajectory of these feelings, men reported higher levels of identity certainty and confident power across age. Non-college-educated men recalled the highest levels of concern about aging across age. We discuss how these findings add to our understanding of the experience of aging in these domains.     

Sex differences in spatial ability: a lateralization of function approach

The current study was designed to examine whether the extent of the male advantage in performance on a spatial task was determined by the extent to which the task was right-hemisphere dependent. Participants included 108 right-handed men and women who completed the mental rotation, waterlevel, and paperfolding tasks, all of which were presented bilaterally. The results partially supported the hypothesis. On the mental rotation task, men showed a right-hemisphere advantage, whereas women showed no hemispheric differences; however, no overall sex differences were observed. On the waterlevel task, men outperformed women, and both men and women showed a right-hemisphere advantage. On the paperfolding task, no sex or hemispheric differences were observed. Although the findings of the current study were mixed, the study provides a framework for examining sex differences across different types of spatial ability.     

Covariation of sex differences in mental rotation with body size

Sex difference in mental rotation ability was reconsidered. The Vandenberg-Kuse figures were administered to 120 male and 76 female students from the Medical School of BlackSea Technical University in Trabzon, Turkey to assess the mental rotation ability. Students' height and weight were measured. As expected, men outperformed women on this test and had greater height and weight. Number correct on mental rotation test significantly correlated with height and weight for the total sample and for men, but only with weight for women. Using weight as covariate, the sex difference was no longer significant. The mean mental rotation score was significantly higher for heavy women than for light men. There was a positive correlation between weight and mental rotation test scores for heavy women, but height and weight were negatively correlated with mental rotation test scores for light men. These results suggest that there is no sex difference in mental rotation ability as measured.     

Therapists' judgments of mentally healthy beliefs for women and men

Clinical and counseling literature indicates that practicing psychologists often observe different mental health standards for women and men. Most of this research has examined mental health in terms of personality attributes, and as such there is a noticeable lack of research concerned with mentally healthybeliefs. The present research was concerned with the investigation of a possible gender bias in therapists' mental health standards, defined in terms of personal beliefs. For this purpose, the Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT; Jones, 1969) was completed three different times by a group of licensed psychologists in private practice, measuring their beliefs of how (1) a mentally healthy sex-unspecified adult, (2) a mentally healthy male adult, and (3) a mentally healthy female adult would respond to the IBT. The results indicated that both women and men therapists associated unique beliefs with women's and men's mental health.The late Dr. Frank B. Lambert studied the philosophical foundations of psychotherapy theory and was concerned about value issues in the practice of psychotherapy. He was pursuing his Ph.D. in counseling psychology at the time of his untimely death.Portions of these data were presented at the 1985 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, California. Graditude is extended to Lucia Gilbert and Mark R. Leary for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.     

Free Choice Permission is Strong Permission

Free choice permission, a crucial test case concerning the semantics/ pragmatics boundary, usually receives a pragmatic treatment. But its pragmatic features follow from its semantics. We observe that free choice inferences are defeasible, and defend a semantics of free choice permission as strong permission expressed in terms of a modal conditional in a nonmonotonic logic.     

Male–Female Reactions to Variations in Sexual Explicitness in Pornography: An Empirical Test of Predictions of Intra- and Inter-gender Differences

Previous research has established that men and women respond differently to distinctive characteristics of mediated sexual portrayals. The current study experimentally tests a series of predictions derived from both sperm competition, and minimal parental investment perspectives about between- and within-gender responses to content manipulations of sexually explicit videos. Results indicate that men experienced greater post-exposure arousal and less negative affect after viewing sexually explicit videos than did women. Further, men who viewed more explicit sexual depictions tended to report greater post-exposure arousal than those who saw less explicit depictions. No within-gender differences were found for women in terms of content explicitness. Also, regardless of degree of explicitness, women reported lower levels of post-exposure arousal in response to content depicting male ejaculation than content that does not. Men, though expressing greater post-exposure arousal to less explicit content depicting male sexual climax than that which does not, showed no difference in arousal response when they saw more intensely explicit depictions, whether or not male ejaculation was shown. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for future application of evolutionary theory in studies of mediated sexual content.     

How do location and control over the music influence listeners’ responses?

This study uses Mehrabian and Russell's ( 1974 ) Pleasure‐Arousal‐Dominance (PAD) model to consider how responses to both the music heard and overall in‐situ listening experience are influenced by the listener's degree of control over music selected for a particular listening episode and the location in which the listening takes place. Following recruitment via campus advertisements and a university research participation program, 216 individuals completed a background questionnaire and music listening task in a 3 (location) × 2 (experimenter‐ or participant‐selected music) design. After the listening task, participants completed a short questionnaire concerning the music they heard and the overall in‐situ listening experience. Results demonstrated that there was a positive relationship between control and liking for the music and episode, whether the former was considered in terms of: (1) whether the music was self‐selected or experimenter‐selected or (2) overt ratings of perceived control. Furthermore, the location and liking for the music were related to people's judgments of their enjoyment of the overall experience. This research indicates that the PAD model is a useful framework for understanding everyday music listening and supports the contention that, in a musical context, dominance may be operationalized as control over the music.     

When Do Men and Women Make Attributions to Gender Discrimination? The Role of Discrimination Source

Two experiments examined the effects of discrimination source on men’s and women’s willingness to make attributions to a sexist experimenter or sexist rules. Students (161 male; 171 females) at a US university were exposed to a discriminatory person, discriminatory rule, or no discrimination. “Experiment 1” demonstrated individuals were less likely to make attributions to a sexist person than an unfair rule, and women were especially reluctant to indicate a person was responsible for their discrimination even when a person was the source. “Experiment 2” showed participants were less likely to indicate an experimenter, and even a rule, was sexist when there was a cost to the perpetrator (i.e., advisor would be notified of the perpetrator’s actions) for making such attributions.     

Height and attraction: Do men and women see eye-to-eye?1

Two experiments were conducted to examine the influence of male height on interpresonal attraction. In Experiment 1, short, medium, and tall women evaluated pictures of men whom they believed to be either short, medium, or tall. On the basis of previous research, it was predicted that women's attraction to the men would be an increasing linear function of the men's height. This prediction was not confirmed; men of medium height were seen to be significantly more socially desirable than either short or tall men. This was true whether the female evaluator was short, medium, or tall; women did not differ in their evaluations. In Experiment 2, short, medium, and tall men evaluated the same male stimuli the women had evaluated in Experiment 1. These men not only gave their own evaluation of the male stimuli, but they also estimated how socially desirable the males pictured were to women. While men showed no evidence that they believed height was important to women, their own evaluations revealed that they liked and rated short men more positively than they did tall men. This was true regardless of the height of the male rater. These results were discussed in terms of social stereotypes and the importance of specifying situational context in the prediction of attraction.     

Mental Distress and Physical Symptoms in the Slums of New Delhi: The Role of Individual,Household, and Neighborhood Factors1

Same‐gender researchers interviewed 218 male and 198 female residents of 7 slums in New Delhi, India, which varied in terms of both household‐level variables (e.g., number of people and number of rooms per house) and neighborhood‐level variables (e.g., number of families sharing a water source). Consistent with prior research, women rated household stressors more negatively than did men. In contrast, men rated environmental stressors (traffic, garbage, air pollution, and crime) more negatively than did women. Individual‐level factors (age and psychological variables) significantly predicted both mental distress and physical symptoms. However, multivariate analyses revealed significant household‐and neighborhood‐level effects on mental distress, but not physical symptoms.     

Monkeys represent others' knowledge but not their beliefs

The capacity to reason about the false beliefs of others is classically considered the benchmark for a fully fledged understanding of the mental lives of others. Although much is known about the developmental origins of our understanding of others' beliefs, we still know much less about the evolutionary origins of this capacity. Here, we examine whether non-human primates - specifically, rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) - share this developmental achievement. We presented macaques with a looking-time measure of false belief understanding, one that had recently been developed for use with 15-month-old human infants. Like human infants, monkeys look longer when a human experimenter fails to search in the correct location when she has accurate knowledge. In contrast to infants, however, monkeys appear to make no prediction about how a human experimenter will act when she has a false belief. Across three studies, macaques' pattern of results is consistent with the view that monkeys can represent the knowledge and ignorance of others, but not their beliefs. The capacity to represent beliefs may therefore be a unique hallmark of human cognition.     

No Doubt About It: When Doubtful Role Models Undermine Men's and Women's Math Performance Under Threat

ABSTRACT

Past work has shown that female role models are effective buffers against stereotype threat. The present research examines the boundary conditions of this role model effect. Specifically, we argue that female role models should avoid expressing doubt about their math abilities; otherwise they may cease to buffer women from stereotype threat. For men, a non-doubtful male role model should be seen as threatening, thus harming performance. A doubtful male role model, however, should be seen as non-threatening, thus allowing men to perform up to their ability in math. To test this reasoning, men and women were exposed to either an outgroup or ingroup role model who either expressed doubt or did not. Participants then took a math exam under stereotype threat conditions. As expected, doubtful ingroup role models hurt women, but helped men's performance. Outgroup role models' expressed doubt had no differential effect on performance. We also show that expressions of doubt take on a different meaning when expressed by a female rather than a male role model.     

Gender,experimenter gender and medium of report influence the content of autobiographical memory report

In this study, we examined the role of context in autobiographical memory narratives, specifically as it pertains to gender among emerging adults. Male and female participants reported stressful events in their lives in the presence of an experimenter, and were randomly assigned either to report events verbally or type them, and to report in the presence of a male or female experimenter. Narratives were coded for factual and interpretive content. Results revealed that men verbally reporting to women reported longer narratives than all other groups. Women's narrative length did not vary by medium of report or conversational partner, but women used proportionally fewer internal state phrases when verbally reporting to men than when reporting to women. Women also used proportionally fewer evaluative statements in verbal reports than in typed narratives. Of these important interactions among context, gender, and experimenter gender, some findings, such as men's longer narratives and women's reduced internal states, were counter to expectations. These findings highlight the importance of methodological influences in autobiographical memory studies, in regard to both the context generated by experimental methods, and how gender differences are understood.     

Effects of self-assessment on retention in rule-based learning

The main purpose of most educational and training programs isthat the person will acquire some specified knowledge, retain it until a later time when it will be retrieved and employed to make decisions, select and execute actions, etc. Previous research has indicated that there might be a positive relation between an individual's certainty about the correctness of learned responses and how well the material is retained over shorter time-periods. In the present study, 39 men and 38 women learned the names of eight different hand pliers; they were also assessing their certainty about the names of the pliers. After the learning session, the participants returned after either 1, 6, or 12 wk. for a retention and relearning session. Analysis showed that higher certainty was associated positively with retention. The men were more prone than the women to rate themselves as being "Extremely sure" of being correct, even when they, in fact, were wrong. Also, men and women learned the material equally fast, but the men required significantly fewer trials than the women to relearn material. Inclusion of ratings of certainty offers a convenient way of assessing when training has been sufficient and facilitates detection of misinformation (sure-but-wrong answers).