Masculinity-femininity as a national characteristic and its relationship with national agoraphobic fear levels: Fodor's sex role hypothesis revitalized

Hofstede's dimension of national culture termed Masculinity-Femininity [. Cultures and organizations: software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill] is proposed to be of relevance for understanding national-level differences in self-assessed agoraphobic fears. This prediction is based on the classical work of Fodor [. In: V. Franks & V. Burtle (Eds.), Women in therapy: new psychotherapies for a changing society. New York: Brunner/Mazel]. A unique data set comprising 11 countries (total N=5491 students) provided the opportunity of scrutinizing this issue. It was hypothesized and found that national Masculinity (the degree to which cultures delineate sex roles, with masculine or tough societies making clearer differentiations between the sexes than feminine or modest societies do) would correlate positively with national agoraphobic fear levels (as assessed with the Fear Survey Schedule-III). Following the correction for sex and age differences across national samples, a significant and large effect-sized national-level (ecological) r=+0.67 (P=0.01) was found. A highly feminine society such as Sweden had the lowest, whereas the champion among the masculine societies, Japan, had the highest national Agoraphobic fear score.     

A new measure of perfectionism: the Perfectionism Inventory

In this investigation, we produced a new 8-scale measure of perfectionism called the Perfectionism Inventory (PI) that is designed to capture the important constructs provided by 2 existing Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS; Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990; Hewitt & Flett, 1991b) measures, along with new perfectionism scales. In the results from 3 studies, we describe scale development, scale psychometric properties, and criterion-related validity evidence for the 8 PI scales: Concern Over Mistakes, High Standards for Others, Need for Approval, Organization, Parental Pressure, Planfulness, Rumination, and Striving for Excellence. We present relationships between the 8 PI scales, relevant MPS scales, and other criterion measures. Second-order exploratory and confirmatory analyses provide support for the 8-scale PI model as well as support for 2 composite PI factors labeled Conscientious Perfectionism and Self-Evaluative Perfectionism.     

Messianic language in trans public speech*

ABSTRACT

This essay examines how two trans public figures, Lou Sullivan and Jennifer Finney Boylan, try to realize the need for transgender legibility through messianic rhetoric. Messianism is a site of contention in queer theory, between advocates for either antirelational queer theory or queer utopianism. This essay sees messianic rhetoric as a strategy found in the public speech and writing of Sullivan and Boylan, each of whom instrumentalize it to achieve legibility. Such rhetoric works to the political end of broader transgender acceptance. However, it also relies upon a flattening of trans life into a monolith. Messianic rhetoric legitimates a singular narrative of “how to be trans” through excluding other possibilities. Public speech that rejects this universalizing messianic impulse is possible. The zine “Fucking Trans Women” represents such a possibility, focusing attention on experience and pleasure over narrative linearity, thus providing one path forward for trans public speech.     

Validating Childhood Maltreatment Typologies Using Data Linkage

This data linkage study aims to examine associations between subgroups of child maltreatment and a range of demographic (e.g., gender) familial (e.g., parental unemployment) and health outcomes. Structured interviews were conducted on 2,980 participants. Data were then linked with information drawn from Danish registries. Multinomial logistic regression analyses indicated out-of-home-care was a shared risk for all forms of maltreatment relative to nonmaltreated controls. Sexual and co-occurring abuse groups had strong associations with psychiatric outcomes at age 21. Findings emphasize how a child’s early environment can impact health, highlighting the need for targeted interventions encompassing a range of risk factors at an early age.     

Creativity in Middle Childhood: Influence of Perceived Maternal Sensitivity,Self-esteem,and Shyness

This study aimed to examine the relationship between maternal sensitivity and affect, as perceived by the child, and childhood creativity. Self-esteem and shyness were considered mediating factors. A total of 151 elementary school pupils were tested on verbal and pictorial creativity, self-esteem, and perceived maternal affect and sensitivity. Their teachers assessed each child’s shyness in their relations at school. A Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model of the causal relationships among the study’s variables was tested. Results supported this theoretical model of causality. Maternal sensitivity had a significant, direct, positive effect on self-esteem, and a direct negative effect on shyness. In addition, self-esteem had a direct positive effect on verbal creativity and shyness had a negative direct effect on verbal and pictorial creativity. The indirect effect of maternal sensitivity on verbal creativity was significant via both self-esteem and shyness. The findings were discussed in terms of their implications for child development.     

The Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children: Cross-Cultural Assessment with a New Self-Report Measure

This study describes a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses that were conducted with the 44-item Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children- 4th version (SAQ-CIV) to identify a reduced set of items that might be used to construct a new abbreviated instrument for measuring social anxiety in children and adolescents. The fourth version of the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children (SAQ-CIV) was administered to 12,801 non-clinical participants (ages 9 to 15 years) from 12 Latin American countries and Spain. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported a 6-factor structure of social anxiety in children, replicating a similar structure to that of adults (Caballo et al. in Behavioral Psychology/Psicología Conductual, 18(1), 5–34, 2010; Caballo et al. in Behavior Therapy, 43(2), 313–328, 2012): 1) Interactions with the opposite sex, 2) Criticism and embarrassment, 3) Speaking in public/Talking to teachers, 4) Assertive expression of annoyance and disgust, 5) Performing in public, and 6) Interactions with strangers. Each of the factors contains 4 items, yielding an abbreviated 24-item instrument, the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children (SAQ-C). The present results suggest this is a reliable, valid, and culturally sensitive instrument to assess social anxiety in youth.     

Mapping the apetitive and aversive systems with emotional pictures using a block-design fMRI procedure

Negative emotional pictures from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS) have been successful in mapping brain areas related to the aversive system. However, the capacity of positive emotional pictures to study the brain areas related to the appetitive system (i.e., nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex) is less established. In this study, we used a block fMRI design to investigate this issue, including emotional pictures as background while participants performed a vowel-consonant discrimination task. Importantly, participants were heterosexual males and all positive pictures were related to erotic couples, opposite-sex erotica, or romantic scenes. Negative pictures were similar to those used in previous studies. Results were consistent with previous studies using event-related designs, showing activation of amygdala, lateral prefrontal cortex, and occipito-temporal areas, but positive pictures showed a significant activation in the left nucleus accumbens. These findings provide evidence of the utility of block designs in emotional research (positive emotional pictures).     

The Measurement of Engagement and Burnout: A Two Sample Confirmatory Factor Analytic Approach

This study examines the factorial structure of a new instrument to measure engagement, the hypothesized `opposite' of burnout in a sample of university students (N=314) and employees (N=619). In addition, the factorial structure of the Maslach-Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) is assessed and the relationship between engagement and burnout is examined. Simultaneous confirmatory factor analyses in both samples confirmed the original three-factor structure of the MBI-GS (exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy) as well as the hypothesized three-factor structure of engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption). Contrary to expectations, a model with two higher-order factors – burnout and engagement – did not show a superior fit to the data. Instead, our analyses revealed an alternative model with two latent factors including: (1) exhaustion and cynicism (core of burnout); (2) all three engagement scales plus efficacy. Both latent factors are negatively related and share between 22% and 38% of their variances in both samples. Despite the fact that slightly different versions of the MBI-GS and the engagement questionnaire had to be used in both samples the results were remarkably similar across samples, which illustrates the robustness of our findings.