Gender differences in erotic plasticity--evolutionary or sociocultural forces? Comment on Baumeister (2000)

R. F. Baumeister (2000) argued that there are gender differences in erotic plasticity, meaning that women are more influenced by cultural and social factors than men are. He attributed the gender difference in erotic plasticity to evolutionary, biological forces. We propose an alternative account of the data using a multifactor sociocultural model that rests on 4 assertions: (a) Men have more power than women on many levels including the institutional and the interpersonal levels, (b) education increases women's power, (c) groups with less power (women) pay more attention to and adapt their behavior more to the group with more power (men) than the reverse, and (d) gender roles powerfully shape behavior, and heterosexuality is a more important element of the male role than the female role.     

Gender differences in self-esteem: a meta-analysis.

Two analyses were conducted to examine gender differences in global self-esteem. In analysis I, a computerized literature search yielded 216 effect sizes, representing the testing of 97,121 respondents. The overall effect size was 0.21, a small difference favoring males. A significant quadratic effect of age indicated that the largest effect emerged in late adolescence (d = 0.33). In Analysis II, gender differences were examined using 3 large, nationally representative data sets from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). All of the NCES effect sizes, which collectively summarize the responses of approximately 48,000 young Americans, indicated higher male self-esteem (ds ranged from 0.04 to 0.24). Taken together, the 2 analyses provide evidence that males score higher on standard measures of global self-esteem than females, but the difference is small. Potential reasons for the small yet consistent effect size are discussed.     

MATERNITY LEAVE, ROLE QUALITY, WORK INVOLVEMENT, AND MENTAL HEALTH ONE YEAR AFTER DELIVERY

Employment status, maternity leave, and role quality were investigated as predictors of women's mental health one year after delivery. Homemakers and part-time and full-time employees did not differ on measures of depression, anxiety, anger, or self-esteem. There were no main effects of leave length. Distress was associated with job overload, role restriction, and infant distress. Leave length interacted with the relative salience of work and family, and employment status interacted with employment preference to predict distress. Depression was greatest among women relatively high in work salience when leaves were long. Anxiety and anger were greatest among women whose employment status was not congruent with their preferences. These interactions underscore the importance of individual differences in responses to leave and work.     

Expert Evidence for the Practical Prosecutor

There has been a decade of legislative progress in England and Wales aimed at making children's evidence as receivable in criminal courts as is adults' and at protecting them when giving their evidence. However opinion still prevails that children are routinely traumatised by the court process. Could expert evidence help lessen the trauma for the child?     

Beyond the twee: Thuy’s practical expression of living the Mercy Education Value of hospitality

This article utilises hermeneutic phenomenology as a theoretical framework for reflecting upon and interpreting the Mercy Education Value of hospitality. It describes an incident involving the author’s encounter with a member of staff upon his new appointment in a Catholic secondary college formed in the Mercy Tradition. Through this article, the possibilities opened by such an encounter for hermeneutic phenomenology are explored using van Manen’s lifeworld existentials as guides to reflection upon the described incident. The four lifeworld existentials are lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality) and lived other (relationality). In using these as guides to reflection, it is argued that some insights into the Mercy value of hospitality may be gleaned, namely that to be Mercy involves: (1) exceeding the carefully and socially programmed how are you – fine exchange; (2) an encounter with the other – the stranger – in whom is to be found the person of Jesus Christ, in which both participants are transformed; and (3) taking a risk – pushing boundaries so as to enter into relationship with the other.     

Beware the eyes behind the mask: The capture and hold of selective attention by backward masked fearful eyes

Fearful facial expressions are important social indicators of environmental threat. Among the various features of a fearful face, the eyes appear to be particularly important for recognizing and responding to these social cues. One way in which fearful faces facilitate observers’ behavior is by automatically capturing attention. This is true for both consciously and nonconsciously processed fearful faces. Recent research suggests that consciously processed fearful eyes alone are sufficient to capture observers’ attention. However, it is unknown as to whether or not nonconsciously processed, backward masked, fearful eyes are sufficient to facilitate spatial attention. To test this possibility, two dot-probe experiments with masked fearful eye stimuli were performed. In Experiment 1, we found that, relative to scrambled eyes, masked fearful eyes facilitate attentional orienting and delay attentional disengagement. In Experiment 2, we replicated this effect when comparing backward masked fearful to neutral eyes. Thus, the data suggest that nonconscious fearful eyes facilitate spatial attention through facilitated orienting and delayed disengagement.     

The development of occupational sex-role stereotypes: The effects of gender stability and age

This study investigated occupational sex-role stereotypes of nursery school, kindergarten, third-grade, and sixth-grade children, and the effects of their acquiring gender constancy, specifically the concept of gender stability. Two types of occupational attitudes were assessed: (1) personal aspirations (PA) and (2) ideas about jobs men and women do. The latter were determined using the Occupations Survey (OS). Children chose stereotyped occupations for themselves even before they had a concept of gender stability. Boys' personal aspiration responses were more stereotyped than girls'. On the Occupations Survey, gender-stable nursery schoolers' responses were more stereotyped than those of the nonstable children; and a significant effect for age was found, with stereotyping decreasing among third graders and sixth graders. No sex differences were found on the OS. Differences in the two areas of occupational attitudes suggested two processes of learning sex roles. Social learning more readily accounts for the early stereotyped answers on the PA. Cognitive developmental theory is congruent with the OS scores of the nursery school children.     

Beyond family‐level adversities: Exploring the developmental timing of neighborhood disadvantage effects on the brain

A growing literature suggests that adversity is associated with later altered brain function, particularly within the corticolimbic system that supports emotion processing and salience detection (e.g., amygdala, prefrontal cortex [PFC]). Although neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage has been shown to predict maladaptive behavioral outcomes, particularly for boys, most of the research linking adversity to corticolimbic function has focused on family‐level adversities. Moreover, although animal models and studies of normative brain development suggest that there may be sensitive periods during which adversity exerts stronger effects on corticolimbic development, little prospective evidence exists in humans. Using two low‐income samples of boys (n = 167; n = 77), Census‐derived neighborhood disadvantage during early childhood, but not adolescence, was uniquely associated with greater amygdala, but not PFC, reactivity to ambiguous neutral faces in adolescence and young adulthood. These associations remained after accounting for several family‐level adversities (e.g., low family income, harsh parenting), highlighting the independent and developmentally specific neural effects of the neighborhood context. Furthermore, in both samples, indicators measuring income and poverty status of neighbors were predictive of amygdala function, suggesting that neighborhood economic resources may be critical to brain development.