Locus of Control and Hostility: Sex Differences

The Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External locus of control scale and the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire were administered to 35 male and 35 female college students. In both the total sample and the female sample, significant correlations were observed between locus of control and hostility with an external locus of control being associated with greater hostility. Although locus of control was significantly related to all of the hostility scores in the female sample, the male sample generally showed no significant relationship between locus of control and hostility. The sex differences in the data and the possibility of item overlap between the locus of control and hostility measures are discussed.     

The Prediction of Students' Satisfaction with Community College Vocational Training

The present study was conducted with 1,632 college vocational students in North Carolina to test the job satisfaction postulate of Rusbult's (1980a) investment model. The model postulate, that satisfaction is a function of perceived positive and negative outcomes, received support and proved to be defensible even after controlling for a broad array of situational variables. This postulate has also received empirical support from studies of satisfaction with business relationships, friendships, and romantic associations. The present study also introduced a new measure of outcomes: the Perceived Outcomes of College Life measure.     

Socially Desirable Responding and Impression Management in the Endorsement of Love Styles

In 2 experiments, the researcher investigated the social desirability of different love styles (Eros, Ludus, Storge, Pragma, Mania, and Agape). In Experiment 1, the Marlowe-Crowne measure of social desirability (D. P. Crowne & D. Marlowe, 1960) was correlated negatively with possessive, dependent (Mania) love styles in both men and women. In men, social desirability was correlated positively with romantic, passionate love (Eros) and game-playing love (Ludus), but negatively with all-giving, selfless love (Agape). In women, social desirability was correlated positively with Agape, but negatively with Ludus. In Experiment 2, the researcher replicated these findings using an impression management manipulation (good, bad, and honest responding). The gender differences in social desirability of different love styles are explained in terms of traditional and nontraditional gender role socialization.     

The effects of relationship context and modality on ratings of funniness

There is evidence to suggest that humour is an important part of mate choice and that humour may serve as an indicator of genetic quality. The current study investigated how rated funniness from a video clip was related to an individual’s attractiveness as a short-term or long-term partner. We additionally tested for the presence of an attractiveness halo effect on humour ratings by comparing ratings of funniness from video clips, audio-only presentations, and photographs. We found that funniness was most strongly correlated with attractiveness for short-term relationships, especially in videos of males. We also found that attractiveness was related to funniness ratings differently across video, audio-only clips, and photographs. Relative to their rated funniness in the audio-only condition, with no appearance cues, attractive individuals were rated as funnier in video clips than less attractive individuals. An additional study demonstrated that ratings of flirtatiousness and funniness were strongly correlated. Perceived similarity between producing humour and flirting may explain why humour is more preferable in a short-term partner as flirting may be seen to signal proceptivity. The effects of attractiveness on humour judgement may also be explained by an association with flirtation as flirting may be most enjoyable when directed by attractive individuals.     

Perceived threat of infectious disease and its implications for sexual attitudes

A study (n = 411) investigated the relationship between chronic individual differences in germ aversion and sociosexual attitudes (short-term mating orientation, long-term mating orientation, and anticipated future sexual promiscuity), and also tested whether the magnitudes of these relations differ depending on the temporary perceptual salience of disease threat. Results revealed person-by-situation interactions. When the threat of disease was temporarily salient, germ aversion correlated negatively with short-term mating orientation and with future sexual promiscuity, and correlated positively with long-term mating orientation; these effects were either weaker or nonexistent under control conditions. These effects emerged most clearly among women.     

Gender differences in implicit and explicit personality traits

This article investigates gender differences in implicit and explicit measures of the Big Five traits of personality. In a high-powered study (N = 14,348), we replicated previous research showing that women report higher levels of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Neuroticism. For implicit measures, gender differences were much smaller for all, and opposite in sign for Extraversion. Somewhat higher levels of implicit Neuroticism and Agreeableness were observed in women, and somewhat higher levels of implicit Extraversion and Openness were observed in men. There was no gender difference in implicit Conscientiousness. A possible explanation is that explicit self-concepts partly reflect social norms and self-expectations about gender roles, while implicit self-concepts may mostly reflect self-related experiences.     

A preliminary investigation of sex differences in associations between emotion regulation difficulties and higher-order cognitive abilities

The present study sought to clarify the cognitive correlates of emotion regulation difficulties (ERD). Further, because prior evidence suggests sex differences in emotion regulation, sex was examined as a moderator of associations between cognitive abilities and ERD. Participants (N = 154) completed self-report measures of ERD, and were administered neuropsychological tests assessing crystallized and fluid intelligence, as well as various components of executive functioning. Bivariate correlations and results from regression analyses suggested sex-dependent associations among cognitive processes and ERD. For men, inhibition of dominant response tendencies was associated with lower ERD, whereas for women, a host of executive abilities (e.g., greater inhibition, cognitive flexibility, semantic processing, abstract reasoning) were associated with greater ERD. Implications for the neurocognitive conceptualization of emotion dysregulation will be discussed.     

Interview anxiety across the sexes: Support for the sex-linked anxiety coping theory

The sex-linked anxiety coping theory states that females’ anxiety levels may be less detrimental to their selection test performance because they have more available coping resources and engage in more constructive coping strategies prior to and during selection tests. This research project sought to investigate whether gender moderates the link between interview anxiety and interview performance. Co-op students (N = 125) participated in a mock interview as part of a course requirement. The results indicated that gender moderated the relation between self-rated interview anxiety and interview performance. Males were no more anxious than were females, but experienced significantly greater impairments to performance in the job interview as a result of interview anxiety. Of interest, interviewer-rated interview anxiety did not interact with gender to predict interview performance, which supports preliminary research evidence that perceptions and the experience of interview anxiety are not necessarily congruent.     

It takes one to know one: Relationship between lie detection and psychopathy

We investigated primary and secondary psychopathy and the ability to detect high-stakes, real-life emotional lies in an on-line experiment (N = 150). Using signal detection analysis, we found that lie detection ability was overall above chance level, there was a tendency towards responding liberally to the test stimuli, and women were more accurate than men. Further, sex moderated the relationship between psychopathy and lie detection ability; in men, primary psychopathy had a significant positive correlation with the ability to detect lies, whereas in women there was a significant negative correlation with deception detection. The results are discussed with reference to evolutionary theory and sex differences in processing socio-emotional information.     

La subjetividad,sin más. Concepto e implicaciones epistemológicas e interventivas

Resumen

Este artículo introductorio se dedica a presentar el concepto de subjetividad desde una perspectiva teórica socioconstruccionista y desde la lógica disciplinaria de la Psicología Cultural. Eso implica entenderla como socialmente construida, en permanente transformación y con contenidos de naturaleza cultural. Posteriormente, el texto se adentra en algunas de las implicaciones que comporta trabajar con la subjetividad. Implicaciones y retos para la investigación, en relación al objeto y al sentido epistemológico del conocimiento construido, hasta implicaciones y retos en el ámbito interventivo, concretamente para la práctica terapéutica. Con todo, no se pretende un texto de profundización teórica, filosófica o histórica, sino que quiere ser fundamentalmente una invitación, un abordaje orientado a la difusión social de la necesidad de recuperar este concepto y ponerlo en el centro del pensamiento psicológico, tanto para el orientado a la investigación como para el que actúa de base de la intervención.