Gender constructions from a project on sex offenders

Abstract

The four-year group therapy of 16 sex offenders in prison was videotaped, and 21 sessions were carefully transcribed and analysed by means of conversation analysis and analysis of metaphor and narration. These qualitative methods are apt for verbal data and can be combined with psychoanalytic thinking in a productive way. New forms of process analysis can be developed. The results presented here are selected to relate to the topic of how the imprisoned group therapy participants constructed “gender” by ways of speaking about themselves, women, and their victims, young girls. The results show that it would be a mistake to think of these ways of speaking as if they could be ignored in favour of “deeper” motives, lying “behind” the words. Our results show how unconscious constructions of gender are not beyond language, but in language. “Doing gender” is a conversational practice.     

Outcome expectations and use of smokeless tobacco (snus): A cross‐sectional study among young Norwegian snus users

Wiium, N. & Aarø, L.E. (2011). Outcome expectations and use of smokeless tobacco (snus): A cross‐sectional study among young Norwegian snus users. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 64–70. In this study, measures of outcome expectancies related to use of snus (wet snuff) were used to predict reported frequency of snus use. Data stem from a nation‐wide survey in Norway among 16‐ to 20‐year‐olds. Only users of snus were included in the statistical analyses (n = 589). The main outcome measure, frequency of snus use, was measured as a categorical variable – occasional, weekly and daily use. Four dimensions of outcome expectancies (mood regulation, smoking control, weight control and negative health outcomes) were measured and confirmed in a confirmatory factor analysis. Informants tended to believe that snus use is harmful to health, but still they supported the idea of snus as a way to control own cigarette smoking. In a SEM model, two of the four dimensions of outcome expectancies turned out to be particularly significant predictors of frequency of snus use – mood regulation and smoking control. No significant interactions with gender were found. Males scored higher than females on “mood regulation”, and “smoking control”, while females scored higher than males on “negative health outcomes”. If more smokers were convinced that snus use is a less harmful alternative, more of them might start using snus, not only because there is some association between health outcome expectancies and snus use, but also because snus use by many is perceived as a remedy to stop smoking and as a way to gain some of the mood regulation benefits which are usually associated with smoking.     

Age and gender differences in implicit motives

Research on age differences in implicit motives is rare and has shown contradictory results. We investigated age and gender differences in implicit motives (achievement, power, affiliation and intimacy), measured by the Picture Story Exercise (PSE), in an extensive, heterogeneous dyadic sample of 736 adults aged 20–80 years. Data were analyzed with a multilevel approach. Results indicate lower motive scores in all four measured motives in aged as compared to young adults but higher scores in activity inhibition. Further, women scored higher in affiliation and intimacy motives than men, while men scored higher in achievement and power motives and in activity inhibition than women. Possible underlying affective and neuroendocrinological processes of age dependent change in implicit motives are discussed.     

Subtyping pathological gamblers on the basis of affective motivations for gambling: relations to gambling problems, drinking problems, and affective motivations for drinking

Pathological gamblers who drink when gambling (n=158; 77% men; mean age=36.0 years) completed the Inventory of Gambling Situations (IGS) and gambling and drinking criterion measures. Principal components analysis on the IGS subscales revealed negative (e.g., Unpleasant Emotions) and positive (e.g., Pleasant Emotions) gambling situation factors. Subjecting IGS factor scores to cluster analysis revealed three clusters: (a) enhancement gamblers, with low negative and high positive factor scores; (b) coping gamblers, with very high negative and high positive factor scores; and (c) low emotion regulation gamblers, with low negative and positive factor scores (59%, 23%, and 18% of the sample, respectively). Clusters were validated with a direct measure of gambling motives. Additional validity analyses showed that coping gamblers scored higher than the other groups on a variety of different gambling activities, gambling problems, drinking frequency, drinking problems, and coping drinking motives, whereas low emotion regulation gamblers scored lower than the other groups on gambling frequency, gambling problems, drinking quantity, and enhancement drinking motives. The findings validate this empirical approach to subtyping gamblers and suggest consistency of motives across addictive behaviors.     

Psychological processes in young bullies versus bully‐victims

Some children who bully others are also victimized themselves (“bully‐victims”) whereas others are not victimized themselves (“bullies”). These subgroups have been shown to differ in their social functioning as early as in kindergarten. What is less clear are the motives that underlie the bullying behavior of young bullies and bully‐victims. The present study examined whether bullies have proactive motives for aggression and anticipate to feel happy after victimizing others, whereas bully‐victims have reactive motives for aggression, poor theory of mind skills, and attribute hostile intent to others. This “distinct processes hypothesis” was contrasted with the “shared processes hypothesis,” predicting that bullies and bully‐victims do not differ on these psychological processes. Children (n = 283, age 4–9) were classified as bully, bully‐victim, or noninvolved using peer‐nominations. Theory of mind, hostile intent attributions, and happy victimizer emotions were assessed using standard vignettes and false‐belief tasks; reactive and proactive motives were assessed using teacher‐reports. We tested our hypotheses using Bayesian model selection, enabling us to directly compare the distinct processes model (predicting that bullies and bully‐victims deviate from noninvolved children on different psychological processes) against the shared processes model (predicting that bullies and bully‐victims deviate from noninvolved children on all psychological processes alike). Overall, the shared processes model received more support than the distinct processes model. These results suggest that in early childhood, bullies and bully‐victims have shared, rather than distinct psychological processes underlying their bullying behavior.     

Sexuality and Exercise Motivations: Are Gay Men and Heterosexual Women Most Likely to be Motivated by Concern About Weight and Appearance?

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between sexuality and exercise motivations in 93 British bar staff. Participants who self-identified as heterosexual, gay, or lesbian completed the revised version of the Exercise Motivations Inventory and reported exercise frequency. Heterosexual men scored lower on appearance motives than did heterosexual women and gay men, higher on enjoyment motives than did gay men, and higher on competition motives than did women and gay men. Men were significantly less likely than women to be motivated by weight management. Heterosexual men also reported exercising significantly more frequently than the other three groups. Suggestions for targeted exercise promotion initiatives are discussed.     

Sex differences in estimating multiple intelligences in self and others: A replication in Russia

This was a crosscultural study that focused on sex differences in self‐ and other‐estimates of multiple intelligences (including 10 that were specified by Gardner, 1999 and three by Sternberg, 1988) as well as in an overall general intelligence estimate. It was one of a programmatic series of studies done in over 30 countries that has demonstrated the female “humility” and male “hubris” effect in self‐estimated and other‐estimated intelligence. Two hundred and thirty Russian university students estimated their own and their parents’ overall intelligence and “multiple intelligences.” Results revealed no sex difference in estimates of overall intelligence for both self and parents, but men rated themselves higher on spatial intelligence. This contradicted many previous findings in the area which have shown that men rate their own overall intelligence and mathematical intelligence significantly higher than do women. Regressions indicated that estimates of verbal, logical, and spatial intelligences were the best predictors of estimates of overall intelligence, which is a consistent finding over many studies. Regressions also showed that participants’ openness to experience and self‐respect were good predictors of intelligence estimates. A comparison with a British sample showed that Russians gave higher mother estimates, and were less likely to believe that IQ tests measure intelligence. Results were discussed in relation to the influence of gender role stereotypes on lay conception of intelligence across cultures.     

Gender’s Role in Misperceptions of Peers’ Sexual Motives

The sexual double standard influences men’s and women’s sexual attitudes and behavior, leading men and women to consider distinct sexual motives, or reasons whether or not to engage in sexual intercourse. The goal of the present paper was to document how the sexual double standard shapes perceptions of peers’ sexual motives. We build on past research by using open-ended questions and measuring perceptions of both same-gender and other-gender peers. The sample included 154 heterosexual college students (50 % female, 49 % European American, 25 % Latino American, 26 % African American) recruited via probability sampling. When we compared perceptions of men’s and women’s sexual motives, we found that participants seemed to rely on the sexual double standard. Participants were more likely to attribute a female-stereotyped motive (e.g., romantic relationship characteristics, feeling “ready”, emotional investment) and less likely to attribute a male-stereotyped motive (“easy”, arousal, physical appearance) to female peers than to male peers. However, when we compared participants’ own motives to perceptions of their peers’ motives, participants overestimated male-stereotyped motives and underestimated female-stereotyped motives in peers, regardless of peer gender, possibly in congruence with stereotypes of hookup culture. These findings demonstrate that, although individuals sometimes rely on the sexual double standard to attribute sexual motives to others, misperceptions of peers’ sexual motives may also be influenced by stereotypes of hookup culture. These misperceptions contribute to pluralistic ignorance that may influence college students’ sexual behaviors.     

Suspicious minds: The motive to acquire relationship‐threatening information

In four studies, we obtained evidence for the reliability and validity of a 21‐item scale designed to measure a new theoretical construct: individual differences in the motivation to acquire relationship‐threatening information (hereafter, MARTI). Study 1 provided evidence for the MARTI scale's reliability and discriminant validity, revealing that it was reliable and not significantly correlated with measures of the Big Five personality traits, adult attachment styles, or more general social orientations. Studies 2 and 3 provided evidence for the scale's convergent and discriminant validity, showing that dating partners with higher MARTI scores (i.e., those who were more motivated to acquire relationship‐threatening information) scored lower in relational trust and reported engaging in more “suspicion behaviors.” Study 4 provided behavioral evidence for the scale's predictive validity, revealing that (a) dating partners with higher MARTI scores were more likely to break up within 5 months, and (b) the breakup rate was most pronounced for dating partners who scored higher on the scale and who also reported being less close. We discuss how this new construct and measure can be used to study important relationship dynamics.

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Dispositional Anxiety and Frontal‐Midline Theta: On the Modulatory Influence of Sex and Situational Threat

In their adaptive control hypothesis, Cavanagh and Shackman (2015) recently claimed that dispositional anxiety is correlated with frontal‐midline theta (FMθ) as a generic “need for control” signal of the anterior midcingulate cortex. Here, we tested this assumption, also considering potential modulatory influences of anticipatory threat and individuals’ sex. In a nonclinical sample of 168 participants (84 women), electroencephalogram was recorded while individuals performed a simple two‐choice task. Half of the participants were assigned to a threat anticipation condition (anticipation of public speaking), whereas the other half was assigned to a control condition. State anxiety was monitored across the experiment. Dispositional anxiety was assessed by self‐report scales, which were completed before individuals came to the laboratory. Target stimuli in the two‐choice task induced a transient increase in FMθ power that was subject to an interaction of dispositional anxiety, sex, and experimental group. Only in women who anticipated public speaking did we observe a substantial positive relation between dispositional anxiety and general FMθ power. Our results indicate that the link between dispositional anxiety and FMθ is not universal but rather depends on complex interactions of individuals’ sex and situational threat.     

Personality variable differences between disease clusters

Previous studies of personality and health have focused mainly on the influence of psychological factors on single diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease (CHD), thereby neglecting the problem of comorbidity (i.e. the combination of different diseases). The main focus of the present study was the discrimination between single‐ and multiple‐disease conditions on the basis of personality traits. An extensive battery of personality scales implicated in health was administered to a sample of n=5133 individuals of both genders between the ages of 40 and 65. Subjects also reported their health or illness status. A factor analysis of the personality scales yielded five dimensions clearly interpretable as “Emotional Lability”, “Type A Behaviour”, “Behavioural Control”, “Locus of Control over Diseases”, and “Psychoticism”. Hierarchical cluster analyses of the subsample of participants who reported suffering from more than one disease led to eight clusters representing individuals with different combinations of diseases. Generally, there were very few significant differences between healthy and single‐disease participants with regard to personality. However, mean factor scores calculated for “Emotional Lability” were higher across the multiple‐disease groups than in the healthy and single‐disease groups. No other personality factor showed this trend. In general the results reported here show the important role negative affectivity (e.g. Emotional Lability, Neuroticism, Depression) plays in differentiating between single and multiple diseases. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rigidity of the far‐right? Motivated social cognition in a nationally representative sample of Hungarians on the eve of the far‐right breakthrough in the 2010 elections

We investigated the “rigidity of the right” hypothesis in the context of the far‐right breakthrough in the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary elections. This hypothesis suggests that psychological characteristics having to do with need for security and certainty attract people to a broad‐based right‐wing ideology. A nationally representative sample (N = 1000) in terms of age, gender and place of residence was collected by means of the random walking method and face‐to‐face interviews. Voters of JOBBIK (n = 124), the radically nationalist conservative far‐right party, scored lower on System Justifying Belief, Belief in a Just World (Global) and higher on Need for Cognition than other voters. Our results contradict the “rigidity of the right” hypothesis: JOBBIK voters scored, on many measures, opposite to what the hypothesis would predict.     

Framing the Ultimatum Game: Gender differences and autonomic responses

The present study aimed at investigating whether the way offers are framed in the Ultimatum Game (UG) affects behavioral and autonomic responses in men and women. The “I give you” and “I take” expressions were used as gain and loss frames, respectively. Skin conductance and heart rate were recorded as indices of autonomic activation in response to unfair, mid‐value, and fair offers. Acceptance rates were higher in men than in women under the gain frame. Moreover, men showed higher acceptance rates under the gain than under the loss frame with mid‐value offers, whereas women's choices were not affected by frame. On the physiological level, men produced differential autonomic response patterns during decision‐making when offers were presented under gain and loss framing. The “I take” frame, by acting as a loss frame, elicited in men the characteristic defensive response pattern that is evoked by aversive stimulation, in which increases in skin conductance are coupled with increases in heart rate. On the other hand, the “I give you” frame, by acting as a gain frame, elicited in men increases in skin conductance associated with prevailing heart rate deceleratory responses, reflecting a state of enhanced attention and orienting. In contrast, women's autonomic reactivity was not affected by frame, consistent with behavioral results. Phasic changes in heart rate were crucial in revealing differential functional significance of skin conductance responses under different frames in men, thus questioning the assumption that this autonomic measure can be used as an index of negative emotional arousal in the UG.     

Need for cognitive closure and politics: Voting,political attitudes and attributional style

T his paper examines the impact of dispositional Need for Cognitive Closure (NFC) on different political attitudes and on the “person blame” and the “system blame” dimensions. Two hundred and thirty‐four psychology students completed a questionnaire containing the Italian version of the Need for Closure scale, a measure of political and ideological attitudes, a measure of the person‐system blame dimensions, and a measure of past voting. Results showed that high NFC individuals (vs. low NFCs) reported having voted for a right‐wing party and holding more conservative attitudes. High NFCs (vs. low NFCs) turned out to have stronger anti‐immigrant attitudes, to be more nationalistic, to prefer an autocratic leadership and a centralized form of political power. High NFCs also value religiosity more highly than low NFCs. High NFCs (vs. low NFCs) scored lower on pluralism and multiculturalism. Furthermore, high NFCs (vs. low NFCs) revealed a tendency to blame individuals for social problems, but no significant difference was found with regard to the system blame dimension. Results are discussed in the light of the motivated social cognition approach (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003).     

Officer attitudes towards adult male prisoners who self-harm: development of an attitudinal measure and investigation of sex differences

Purpose: The aim of the current study was to explore attitudes towards self‐harm in a sample of prison officers, with subsidiary aims of assessing if these attitudes alter as a function of the prisoner's behavior and the sex of the participant. Method: One hundred and sixty‐two officers (100 men and 62 women) completed a general measure of their attitudes towards prisoners and one designed to assess Attitudes towards Prisoners who Self‐Harm (APSH). Participants rated their perceptions of two adult male prisoners depicted in vignettes. The vignettes depicted identical types of self‐harm but varied the behavioral characteristics of the prisoners involved, with one depicted as “well‐behaved” and the other as “disruptive”. Results: Women were more likely than men to report positive attitudes towards self‐harm and in particular were less likely than men to endorse negative myths regarding self‐harm. The prisoner depicted as “disruptive” invoked increased negative attitudes than the “well‐behaved” prisoner. This finding was consistent across sex. Conclusion: The current study indicates that APSH are comprised of a number of components that were influenced by the sex of the participant and the behavioral characteristics of the prisoners depicted. The implications of these findings to practice are discussed. Aggr. Behav. 33:63–72, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Greater self‐enhancement in Western than Eastern Ukraine,but failure to replicate the Muhammad Ali effect

Based on the cross‐cultural research linking individualism–collectivism and self‐enhancement, this research examines regional pattern of self‐enhancement in Ukraine. Broadly speaking, the western part of Ukraine is mainly Ukrainian speaking and historically oriented towards Europe, whereas Eastern Ukraine is mainly Russian speaking and historically oriented towards the Russian cultural sphere. We found self‐enhancement on a “better than average” task to be higher in a Western Ukrainian sample compared to an Eastern Ukrainian sample, with differences in independent self‐construals supporting assumed regional variation in individualism. However, the Muhammad Ali effect, the finding that self‐enhancement is greater in the domain of morality than intelligence, was not replicated. The discussion focuses on the specific sources of this regional difference in self‐enhancement, and reasons for why the Muhammad Ali effect was not found.     

The stability of self-concept during adolescence and early adulthood: a six-year follow-up study

The stability and gender differences of self-concept during adolescence and early adulthood were studied in 894 randomly selected Finnish subjects using the shortened version of the Coopersmith (1967) Self-Esteem Inventory. There were no differences between the men and women in the total score for self-concept. In early adulthood, men scored higher than women on general self-esteem, and women scored higher on the home-parents factor in each developmental period from pre-adolescence to adulthood. The stability of self-concept, as well as its different components, was rather high. General self-esteem showed the highest predictive value for the total score 6 years later.     

The Stability of Self-Concept During Adolescence and Early Adulthood: A Six-Year Follow-Up Study

The stability and gender differences of self-concept during adolescence and early adulthood were studied in 894 randomly selected Finnish subjects using the shortened version of the Coopersmith (1967) Self-Esteem Inventory. There were no differences between the men and women in the total score for self-concept. In early adulthood, men scored higher than women on general self-esteem, and women scored higher on the home-parents factor in each developmental period from preadolescence to adulthood. The stability of self-concept, as well as its different components, was rather high. General self-esteem showed the highest predictive value for the total score 6 years later.     

Profiles of Non-Suicidal Self-Injurers and Associated Patterns of Alcohol Use

This study used latent variable mixture modeling (LVMM) with a combined sample of undergraduates and internet users who endorsed non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI; N?=?440) to identify profiles of non-suicidal self-injurers. LVMM results revealed four distinct subtypes (“Experimental NSSI,” “Mild NSSI,” “Multiple Functions/Anxious,” and “Automatic Functions/Suicidal” groups) that were similar to those found in a prior study of undergraduates Klonsky and Olino (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 76:22-27, 2008), with an additional fifth “Multi-method.” ANOCOVAs and logistic regressions showed the first four groups differed on aspects of psychopathology in a similar fashion to the previous study. Specifically, the Experimental and Mild NSSI groups had the lowest levels of psychopathology, and the AF/Suicidal group had higher levels of psychopathology than the first three groups except for anxiety, which was higher for the MF/Anxious group. The additional Multi-method group was found to have higher levels of psychopathology than all other groups, but not significantly different from the MF/Anxious group. With regard to alcohol use and drinking motives, the MF/Anxious group had the highest level of hazardous drinking and drinking motives related to coping with depression and anxiety, enhancement, and conformity. The other four groups were not differentiated from one another on any drinking variable. Findings suggest that NSSI may be better conceptualized as a heterogeneous syndrome in clinical and research settings, with one sub-group being more at-risk for hazardous alcohol use.