To let hair be,or to not let hair be? Gender and body hair removal practices in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Research and anecdotal evidence suggest women continue to remove body hair, and there is some evidence for cultural changes in men's hair removal practices. This paper reports on data collected using an online mix-methods survey from 584 New Zealanders between the ages of 18–35 (mean age 26, 48.9% male, 50.6% female). The data demonstrated that substantial proportions of both women and men in Aotearoa/New Zealand remove body hair from many sites. However, gendered differences remain, and a key dimension of gendered difference appears in the concept of flexible choice around body hair removal or retention. This was seen in the difference between perceived acceptability of having body hair (81% for men, 11% for women). These findings suggest that although men, like women, are now coming under some pressure to remove body hair, there is still a great difference in men and women's capacity to choose whether to bow to it.     

An Evidence‐Based Model for Understanding the Mental Health Experiences of Transgender Australians

A growing body of empirical research has documented the mental health experiences of Australian transgender people. This research indicates three key factors that appear to play a role in determining outcomes for adult transgender Australians: (a) discrimination, (b) access to hormones and/or surgery, (c) community connectedness. Two theoretical frameworks clarify why these factors exist and how they can lead to either negative or positive mental health outcomes. The first is cisgenderism, which describes the ideology that delegitimises people's own understanding of their genders and bodies. Although anyone can experience cisgenderism, it is a particularly common experience for transgender people. The second is decompensation, which describes the processes through which the cumulative effects of stressors may lead to poor mental health. Drawing on both previous empirical findings and these two theoretical frameworks, this article proposes, and provides initial testing of, a model for understanding the mental health of transgender adults in Australia. The article concludes by suggesting the need for changes regarding how decisions are made about mental health service provision for transgender people, how mental health professionals understand the lives of transgender people, and how legislation can better ensure the full inclusion of transgender people in Australia.     

Self-affirmation increases acceptance of health-risk information among UK adult smokers with low socioeconomic status.

This study reports an experiment designed to test whether self-affirmation can overcome defensive processing of risk information in a sample of UK adult smokers with low socioeconomic status. Participants (N = 57) were randomized to either a self-affirmation or control condition before reading a government-sponsored antismoking leaflet and completing measures of message acceptance, intention, and self-efficacy. Participants' subsequent behavior (taking leaflets) was recorded surreptitiously. Results showed that the manipulation significantly increased message acceptance, intention and behavior, and that the effects of the manipulation on behavior were mediated through message acceptance and intention. The practical and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the possible use of self-affirmation manipulations to enhance the effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions.     

Using Foucault's theory of disciplinary power to critically examine the construction of gender in secondary schools

Schools are typically thought of as important places for young people to learn specific academic skills. This review synthesises research from “western” English‐speaking countries to argue that young people learn more than just academic skills at school. Specifically, the review explores how aspects of classroom teaching and culture contribute to how young people understand gender. Drawing on Foucault's theory of disciplinary power, practices within schools are deconstructed to show how they create certain gendered ways of being. The discourses of gender within schools are critiqued by highlighting how they limit diverse expressions of gender. Section 3 of the review draws on literature to highlight how dominant discourses and the practices that create them can be resisted creating the opportunity for other discourses of gender.     

Automatic priming of grip force following action observation

Research shows that action observation can prime execution. Evidence for this comes from experiments that show that action observation influenced temporal (e.g., speed) or spatial (e.g., peak grasp aperture or trajectory) aspects of executed movement. In the paper presented here, we for the first time show that observation can also prime executed action force. Following observation of force actions, participants executed grip-force responses using a dynamometer, and the data showed that their force was modulated by the condition observed. The findings of the study are discussed in terms of a likely cause of the force modulation effect and potential uses that the effect may have for strength rehabilitation.     

Are social networking profiles reliable indicators of sensational interests?

Sensational interests are sometimes reported on the personal profiles of social networking web sites such as Facebook. Can these reports be validated against established psychometric tools used by forensic psychologists? Given that web sites and personal profiles can be used as evidence of a person’s ‘character’ in legal contexts, evaluating their reliability and validity is important. This study evaluated the reliability of extracting data from the interests and activities sections of Facebook profiles, linking them to general personality and Sensational Interests Questionnaire (SIQ) scores. Data from 694 user profiles (N = 352 males) were linked to the Big Five personality traits, age, and educational attainment. Three independent raters coded the number of sensational topics reported by a user in each section. In Poisson regression analyses, higher SIQ Violent Occultism scores predicted a larger count of sensational interests, and sensational activities in males only. Higher SIQ Militarism scores predicted a larger number of sensational interests in males, but a smaller number in females. Although the number of sensational interests reported by social networking users on their personal profiles is potentially informative, further research should investigate gender differences, and why females with greater Militarism scores are less likely to report what these specific interests are.     

Judging the 'passability' of dynamic gaps in a virtual rugby environment

Affordances have recently been proposed as a guiding principle in perception–action research in sport (Fajen, Riley, & Turvey, 2009). In the present study, perception of the ’passability’ affordance of a gap between two approaching defenders in rugby is explored. A simplified rugby gap closure scenario was created using immersive, interactive virtual reality technology where 14 novice participants (attacker) judged the passability of the gap between two virtual defenders via a perceptual judgment (button press) task. The scenario was modeled according to tau theory (Lee, 1976) and a psychophysical function was fitted to the response data. Results revealed that a tau-based informational quantity could account for 82% of the variance in the data. Findings suggest that the passability affordance in this case, is defined by this variable and participants were able to use it in order to inform prospective judgments as to passability. These findings contribute to our understanding of affordances and how they may be defined in this particular sporting scenario; however, some limitations regarding methodology, such as decoupling perception and action are also acknowledged.