Impact of alcohol on sexual decision making: Intentions to have unprotected sex

The impact of alcohol on intentions to have sex with a new partner and the antecedents of intentions were investigated in three studies (N = 139, 60, and 218, respectively). In all three studies, respondents were intoxicated or not intoxicated with alcohol and completed measures based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour in relation to having sex whilst imagining him- or her-self in the scenario. The scenario described unprotected sex between two individuals not in an existing relationship. Consistently across studies, intoxication had a significant effect on intentions for men but not for women. Also consistently across studies, affective attitudes were significantly stronger determinants of intentions for women than for men. Alcohol intoxication consistently moderated the impact of affective attitudes on intentions in women but not men, with greater intoxication associated with stronger impacts (Studies 1, 2, and 3). Implications for understanding the impacts of alcohol intoxication on sexual decision making in men and women are discussed.     

Gender differences in the construction and experience of cancer care: The consequences of the gendered positioning of carers

The experience and construction of caring in 50 informal cancer carers, 35 women and 15 men, was examined using a critical realist approach and a mixed method design. Women reported higher rates of depression, anxiety, unmet needs and burden of care than men. No gender differences were found in time spent care-giving, suggesting that gendered roles are implicated in distress and coping. Semi-structured interviews with 13 carers were used to identify gender differences in caring, analysed using positioning theory. Women described being positioned as all encompassing expert carers, expected to be competent at decision-making, a range of physical caring tasks, and provision of emotional support for the person with cancer. The consequences of this positioning were over-responsibility and self-sacrifice, physical costs and overwhelming emotions, which were self-silenced. In contrast, men carers positioned caring as a competency task which they had mastered, and which provided them with satisfaction, with the emotions of the person with cancer, or their own emotions, being negative aspects of caring. It is concluded that cancer caring is tied to gendered constructions and expectations, with considerable implications for psychological well-being and coping, and for carer support services, which need to take gender issues on board.     

‘It's as if PBC didn’t exist’: The illness experience of women affected by primary biliary cirrhosis

This study investigates the illness experience of women who are affected by primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), a rare chronic liver disease which mostly affects women. Despite the fact that PBC is medically recognised, it shares many characteristics with other chronic and controversial conditions which may lead to delegitimation of the patient's experience of illness, impacting on the construction of the patient's self-identity. Twenty three women took part in semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis and the analysis identified three themes that are interrelated and characterised by a dynamic of normalisation. The first theme, the delegitimation of women's experience, implies denial of patients’ sick-role, trivialisation of fatigue and lack of consideration of patients’ needs. The second theme, PBC as a challenge to women's social identity refers to how patients face delegitimation and manage the illness's consequences for relationships and social roles. The third theme, the need for biographical continuity, focuses on how patients construct their ill identities as a consequence of both the delegitimation and the challenges posed by PBC. Results are discussed in a gender perspective, highlighting how delegitimation and identity construction processes are influenced by women's social roles and conditions.     

Predictors of Support for Women in Military Roles: Military Status,Gender, and Political Ideology

The repeal of combat restrictions by gender raises the importance of understanding factors related to the acceptance of women serving in the full range of military jobs. Previous research shows military affiliated cadets, especially males, are substantially less approving of women serving in military jobs, especially those involving exposure to direct combat or command positions, than are other college students. The current study extends these findings by considering political ideology in addition to gender and military affiliation, as related to attitudes toward women’s roles in the military overall and in combat roles in particular. Survey data from Service Academy cadets (n = 3,116), Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets (n = 1,367), and nonmilitary affiliated college students (n = 2,648), provided measures of whether a woman should or should not be allowed to serve in 9 different military job areas. In addition to overall approval, a scale for combat jobs was created from a subset of 4 of the jobs. Regression analysis indicated that once gender, political party, political position (left/right), and attitudes toward mothers in the workforce overall were controlled, type of college did not add to the prediction of acceptance of women in various military roles. In general, nonmilitary affiliated respondents, women, and those identifying as Democrat offered higher approval scores. Our findings suggest more aggressive programs, designed to educate and socialize these future leaders about women’s roles in the military, may require development.     

Regina Jonas: forgetting and remembering the first female rabbi

Regina Jonas (1902–44), who was ordained in Germany in 1935, is now widely recognised as the world's first female rabbi. However, for almost 50 years after her death at Auschwitz in 1944, she was given very little, if any, public recognition. Based on archival research, interviews and critical engagement with secondary literature, this paper investigates a range of explanations why Jonas was nearly lost to historiography. It also considers the circumstances of the rediscovery of this controversial figure in the early 1990s and explores how she is remembered today. This paper raises important issues in relation to historiography and the connection between processes of remembering, forgetting and identity formation, particularly in relation to the history of the ordination of female rabbis and the history of Jewish communities in Germany.     

Indian Buddhist concepts of normative and deviant bodies: can ancient sexual mores be reconciled with modern sensibilities?

José Cabezón’s Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism is the most comprehensive study to date of early Indian Buddhist notions of sexuality and gender. This article is a response to Cabezón’s work that critiques some of his ideas and raises further questions for research into this still nascent field.     

Conspiracy Accounts as Intergroup Theories: Challenging Dominant Understandings of Social Power and Political Legitimacy

Conspiracy accounting is often regarded as an atypical, pathological form of political reasoning, and little research has considered how ordinary social actors may refer to political conspiracies in the course of argument. In this article, we consider the spontaneous use of conspiracy narratives by politically engaged Greek citizens in interview discussions of the Macedonian crisis. Analysis revealed that conspiracy narratives were typically used to challenge dominant representations that attributed the Macedonian crisis to Greek xenophobic nationalism. Specifically, conspiracy accounts were used to dispute assumptions concerning Greece's majority status by representing the political opposition as a consortium rather than a single out‐group, by recasting the threat posed to Greece as a matter of realistic rather than symbolic competition, and by extending the historical frame of reference to encompass past and prospective future threats to the Greek people and the Greek state. In conclusion, we note how the use of conspiratorial reasoning may be used to construct complex causal arguments concerning intergroup relations and to challenge dominant ideological assumptions about social hierarchy and political legitimacy. In this respect, conspiratorial reasoning might be regarded as a prototypical form of intergroup representation.     

The effect of parental modeling of anxious behaviors and cognitions in school-aged children: An experimental pilot study

The current study tested: (1) the impact of parental modeling of anxious behaviors and cognitions on child anxiety level, anxious cognitions, desired avoidance, and objective performance using an experimental paradigm; and (2) whether the impact of parental modeling of anxious behaviors and cognitions differed by parent gender. Twenty-five parents (a random selection of 12 male and 13 female parents) participated with one of their children (ages 8-12 years; 56.0% male; 76.0% Caucasian). All children experienced two test conditions: an anxious condition in which their parent was trained to act anxiously before a planned spelling test and a non-anxious condition in which their parent was trained to act in a relaxed and confident manner before a planned spelling test. Results showed that, regardless of parent gender, children endorsed higher anxiety levels, anxious cognitions, and desired avoidance of the spelling test in the anxious relative to the non-anxious condition. Parental modeling of anxiety did not affect child spelling performance. Significant interaction effects indicated that fathers had a stronger impact on child anxiety level and cognitions than did mothers. Results highlight the importance of parental modeling and the potential role of both mothers and fathers in prevention and treatment for child anxiety.     

Cultural,contextual, and gender differences in peer talk: A comparative study

Tulviste, T., Mizera, L., De Geer, B. & Tryggvason, M.‐T. (2010). Cultural, contextual, and gender differences in peer talk: A comparative study. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. The study focused on cultural, contextual, and gender differences in children’s peer talk. Same‐sex dyads of Estonian (n = 38), Finnish (n = 38), and Swedish (n = 34) preschool age children were videotaped during unstructured and structured play settings. We found only one gender difference in children’s talkativeness and in the use of regulatory speech: during free play, Swedish boys used more imperatives per directives than Swedish girls. At the same time there were significant cultural and contextual differences. Estonian children were most directive and Swedish children were least directive. Finnish children were less directive than Estonian children but more directive than Swedish children. It was concluded that cultural and contextual factors strongly influence the likelihood, extent, and nature of gender differences in peer talk.