Women,men, and condoms: attitudes and experiences of heterosexual college students

Little is known concerning gender and ethnic differences in attitudes about condoms or about the impact of attitudes on condom use. College students ( N = 393) rated many features of condoms. Overall, students were mildly positive about condoms, believing they offer effective protection but detract from sexual sensation. Both past condom use and future intentions to use condoms were higher among students with more favorable global attitudes toward condoms and more favorable specific beliefs about the interpersonal dynamics of condom use. Future intentions to use condoms were also associated with greater worry about sexually transmitted diseases and fewer previous sexual partners. Women were more favorable toward condoms than men. Gender differences also emerged in the predictors of condom use. Implications for assessing condom attitudes and for increasing condom use among young heterosexuals are discussed.     

Eliminating the battering of women by men: Some considerations for behavior analysis

Based on review of representative literature, history and current research indicate that battering by male partners is a major health problem for women. Use of physical aggression and verbal coercion can be described by three-term contingencies involving escape, avoidance, punishment, and positive reinforcement. These contingencies occur within societal practices, rules, and models that involve oppression of women and insubstantial consequences for men who batter. The difficulties in directly observing a couple's interactions and their aggression have been a methodological barrier to the involvement of behavior analysts in treatment of and research on domestic violence. Recommendations are made for behavior analysts to contribute to reducing battering through development and analysis of program components and application of contingency management and behavioral training technology.     

Beliefs about Sexual Assault in India and Britain are Explained by Attitudes Toward Women and Hostile Sexism

As many as one in five women worldwide will be sexually assaulted over the course of her lifetime (United Nations 2008), yet myths that downplay the prevalence and severity of sexual assault are still widely accepted. Are myths about sexual assault (rape myths) more likely to be accepted in cultures that endorse more traditional gender roles and attitudes toward women? To explore the relationships among rape myth acceptance, attitudes toward women, and hostile and benevolent sexism, data were collected from 112 Indian and 117 British adults, samples from two cultures differing widely in their gender role traditionalism. Analyses confirmed a cultural difference in rape myth acceptance, with the more traditional culture, India, accepting myths to a greater extent than the more egalitarian culture, Britain. Indian participants’ greater rape myth acceptance was explained by their more traditional gender role attitudes and hostile sexism. We discuss ways in which promoting gender egalitarianism may help to break down negative beliefs and reduce the stigma surrounding sexual assault, especially in India, for example through interventions which increase exposure to women in less traditional roles (e.g., those in positions of power).     

Illness Beliefs and Coping Strategies of Diabetic Women

The present study examines the relationship between illness beliefs and coping strategies in diabetic women patients. Measures of illness beliefs and coping strategies were administered to 100 diabetic women. Patients, who believed more strongly in psychosocial, supernatural, and environmental causes of illness, adopted avoidance coping strategies, whereas those who believed less strongly in these causes adhered to approach coping strategies. Patients, who held a strong belief in disease control by themselves and doctors, used approach coping strategies, whereas those who believed in supernatural control of illness used avoidance coping strategies. Approach coping was linked to less severe consequences of illness, less pain, and greater hope for positive outcomes of illness.     

Response to Hanks and McDermott: Temporal Evolution of Beliefs and Beliefs about Temporal Evolution

This paper critically evaluates the celebrated paper of Hanks and McDermott on temporal projection, non-monotonic reasoning, and the frame problem. First I argue against their intuitions, and a fortiori, against their proposed solution. Next, I suggest how the solution they desire could be obtained, were they willing to represent the problem a bit differently.     

Marital Status and Health Beliefs: Different Relations for Men and Women

Although relations between marital status and health have been substantiated, the results of relatively few studies suggest how or why marriage is associated with health. To understand how marriage and health are associated, this study was designed to examine the role of health beliefs. Two thousand two hundred and six (2,206) adults who participated in the New Jersey Family Health Survey provided information about their marital status, proactive health beliefs, and proactive health behaviors. Results indicated that being married (vs. single) was positively associated with men's proactive health beliefs, whereas marriage did not appear to influence women's proactive health beliefs positively. Significant relations between participants' reports of proactive health beliefs and proactive health behaviors were found. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of understanding the complex nature of associations between social relationships and health.     

Beliefs about personality change and continuity

Lay conceptions of personality change and continuity were examined in a sample of 112 undergraduates. Participants rated their personal change over 5 years (past or future), the change they perceived to be normative over 10-year age spans between 15 and 65, their beliefs about whether personality is fixed or malleable (“lay theories”) and their beliefs about the causes of personality change and continuity. Beliefs about normative personality change generally corresponded to research evidence on adult trajectories of the Big Five factors, with some age bias, whereas recalled and anticipated personal change tended to be more positive than these norms. Participants tended to endorse environmental causes more for personality change than for continuity. Lay theories were not consistently associated with these causal beliefs, or with beliefs about personal and normative change.     

Beliefs, experiences and misplaced being: an interactionist account of delusional misidentification

This paper contrasts an interactionist account of delusional misidentification with more traditional one- and two-stage models. Unlike the unidirectional nature of these more traditional models, in which the aetiology of the disorder is said to “progress” from a neurological disruption via an anomalous experience to a delusional belief, the interactionist account posits the interaction of top-down and bottom-up processes to better explain the maintenance of the delusional belief. In addition, it places a greater emphasis on the patient’s underlying phenomenal experience in accounting for the specificity of the delusional content. The role played by patient phenomenology is examined in light of Ratcliffe’s recent phenomenological account. Similarities and differences are discussed. The paper concludes that a purely phenomenological account is unable to differentiate between non-delusional patient groups, who have what appear to be equivalent phenomenal experiences to patients suffering from delusional misidentification but without the delusional belief, and delusional groups, something the interactionist model is able to do.     

Beliefs about female and male nonverbal communication

Participants (N= 441) rated from 1 to 10 how frequently or well they believed hypothetical women and men performed each of twenty nonverbal behaviors or skills. Women were believed to use more expressive and involved nonverbal behaviors than men, and to be more skilled at sending and receiving nonverbal messages. Men were believed to be louder and more interruptive, and to display more nervous, dysfluent behaviors. Ratings given to females by females were higher than were ratings in the other gender combinations for over half the variables, which may accurately describe female—female interaction. Perceived gender differences correlated positively with differences reported in observational studies, indicating that beliefs about nonverbal gender differences were generally accurate. The authors wish to thank Tom Leahy for his assistance in data collection.     

Women,men and Christ crucified

Abstract

Despite frequent claims to the contrary, Passion piety maintained a significant presence within English devotion throughout the sixteenth century. This article centres on several female contributors to evangelical Passion devotion, including Katherine Parr and Elizabeth Tyrwhit. Moving beyond essentialized notions of gendered authorship, the study offers a comparative, historicizing perspective on women's Passion writings, situating female-authored works within their wider contemporary devotional contexts. An argument is advanced for the fluidity and open-endedness of the early landscape of reform, uncovering the surprising continuities which shaped reformed spirituality and revealing a level of confessional interplay at variance with polarized models of Catholic and Protestant devotion.     

Differential experiences of men and women in computerized offices

This study presents data from a multiple-instrument, multisite, two-wave study of the implementation of computerized procedures in offices in order to examine whether this technological innovation differentially affects men and women employees. It explores the possibility that men in offices are benefiting more in terms of career enhancement than are women. Preliminary analyses provide some support for the hypothesis: Men in computerized offices bring more relevant skills to the workplace, are in more influential positions there, and make more computer-related decisions. However, analyses that control for job category show that women are generally satisfied with the training they received and report fewer problems of access to needed computer equipment, software, applications, and help. Women are also somewhat more optimistic than men about the benefits of computer technology for white-collar workers.     

Beliefs about birth control: a consistency theory analysis

201 lower income women aged 20-40 were interviewed in a large midwestern city in December 1967 and January 1968 to determine attitudes towards, beliefs about, and use of birth control. Those who approved of birth control had more positive beliefs about the consequences of birth control than those with less favorable attitudes. Users of reliable methods also held more positive attitudes about birth control consequences than nonusers or users of nonreliable methods although this relationship was weak. Strategies for improving family planning behavioral predictions are suggested as well as implications of this for family planning communication programs.     

Beliefs about birth rank and their reflection in reality

Beliefs about birth rank reflect what the society regards as social reality, and they may also influence that reality. Three studies found that people believe those with different birth ranks differ in their personalities, that higher birth ranks are likely to attain higher occupational prestige, and that the personality characteristics attributed to the various birth ranks favor the actual attainment of higher occupational prestige. In one example of such beliefs, firstborns were rated as most intelligent but least creative whereas the opposite was true of last-borns. The 4th study found that those with higher birth ranks in fact attain more prestigious occupations and actually do complete more years of schooling.     

Beliefs about rape and women's social roles: A Turkish replication

Various researchers on feminist issues have argued that rape against women is supported by beliefs encouraging socioeconomic domination of women and that acceptance of ‘rape myths’ foster those beliefs. If this is true, acceptance of such myths should be correlated with restrictive beliefs about women's social roles. Two previous studies, carried out in England, Israel, United States, and West Germany, confirmed that hypothesis (Costin, 1985; Costin and Schwarz, 1987). The replication of those investigations in Turkey adds further support for the hypothesis.     

Beliefs about stories: Parents' and therapists' explanations of childhood difficulties

Therapists and parents were given vignettes describing the behavioural and emotional difficulties of two nine-year-old children and were asked to rate the importance of a number of possible explanations for such difficulties. Broad agreement was found between parents and therapists, but also there were a number of significant differences. Parents endorsed more child centered explanations and put greater emphasis on physical and developmental factors, while therapists endorsed relationships factors and saw the beliefs of other family members as important. Therapists who were parents showed a pattern of responses that lay between those of parents and non-parent therapists.     

Distress in spouses of Vietnam veterans: associations with communication about deployment experiences

Emerging literature shows a consistent pattern of relationship and psychological distress in spouses or partners of combat veterans with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One possible mechanism of partners' distress posited in clinical literature is that excessive discussion of traumatic events from deployment may have negative effects on partners. At the extreme, some partners are suggested to develop PTSD-like symptoms, or secondary traumatic stress. Despite these hypotheses, there have been few empirical tests of the effects of communicating about such events. In a sample of 465 combat veterans and their spouses who participated in the Family Interview Component of the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study, we explored how the extent of couples' deployment-related communication was associated with partner relationships and psychological distress, and whether such associations were moderated by the severity of veterans' PTSD symptoms. Results showed that Vietnam-specific communication correlated negatively with relationship distress, but the effect was negligible after controlling for overall communication in the relationship. On the other hand, Vietnam-specific communication did not correlate with psychological distress, but the association was significantly moderated by veterans' PTSD symptom severity. Specifically, communication about Vietnam was increasingly and positively associated with partners' psychological distress as veterans' symptoms of PTSD rose into the clinical range, but nonsignificantly and negatively associated with such distress as PTSD symptoms decreased below this level. The findings support previous clinical recommendations that couples' discussions of potentially traumatic events be approached cautiously, and they suggest a need to attend to the content of couples' communications when conducting dyadic interventions for PTSD.     

The physical activity experiences of men with serious mental illness: Three short stories

ObjectivesAlthough a considerable amount of research has explored the effects of physical activity on mental health, the voices of people with mental illness have been largely excluded from published reports. Through this study we aim to foreground service users’ voices in order to shed light on the personal and subjective nature of the relationship between physical activity and serious mental illness (SMI).MethodsAn interpretive case study approach was used to explore in depth the physical activity experiences of three men with SMI. Creative analytic practice was used to write three creative non-fictions which, as first-person narratives, foreground the participants’ voices.ResultsWe present three short stories in an effort to communicate participants’ personal and subjective experiences of physical activity in an accessible, engaging, and evocative manner. We hope to: (i) provide potentially motivating physical activity success stories for others who live with SMI; (ii) increase awareness among mental health professionals of the possibilities of physical activity; and (iii) provide an empathetic understanding of possibilities and problems of living with SMI which may help challenge the stigma surrounding mental illness.ConclusionsFor us, the stories communicate the diversity and difference inherent in the ways men with SMI experience physical activity. We reflect on how the short story form allows these differences to be preserved and respected. We resist making further interpretations of the stories preferring instead to encourage the reader to form her or his own conclusions.