A Longitudinal Study of Conversations with Parents about Sex and Dating During College

Emerging adulthood is a time of sexual and romantic relationship development as well as change in the parent-child relationship. This study provides a longitudinal analysis of 30 young adults’ (17 women, 13 men) sexual experiences, attitudes about sexuality and dating, and reported conversations with parents about sexuality and dating from the first and fourth years of college. Self-report questionnaires revealed increases in general closeness with parents, increases in sexual and dating experiences, and both more sexually permissive as well as more gender stereotyped attitudes. Qualitative analyses of individual interviews indicated a movement from unilateral and restrictive, sex-based topics to more reciprocal and relationship-focused conversations over time. Gender analyses revealed that young women reported more restrictive sex messages and young men more positive-sex messages. Participants also described increased openness and comfort in talking about sexual topics with both mothers and fathers from the first to fourth year of college. Overall, the results suggest that prior findings of increased mutuality with parents during the college years extend to the traditionally taboo topic of sexuality

Self-Reported Memory for Abuse Depends Upon Victim-Perpetrator Relationship

Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: Website: (c) 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.We present preliminary results from the Betrayal Trauma Inventory (BTI) testing predictions from betrayal trauma theory (Freyd, 1994, 1996, in press) about the relationship between amnesia and betrayal by a caregiver. The BTI assesses trauma history using behaviorally defined events in the domains of sexual, physical, and emotional childhood abuse, as well as other lifetime traumatic events. When participants endorse an abuse experience, follow-up questions assess a variety of factors including memory impairment and perpetrator relationship. Preliminary results support our prediction that abuse perpetrated by a caregiver is related to less persistent memories of abuse. This relationship is significant for sexual and physical abuse. Regression analyses revealed that age was not a significant predictor of memory impairment and that duration of abuse could not account for the findings

Self- and Partner-objectification in Romantic Relationships: Associations with Media Consumption and Relationship Satisfaction

Few studies have examined objectification in the context of romantic relationships, even though strong theoretical arguments have often made this connection. This study addresses this gap in the literature by examining whether exposure to mass media is related to self-objectification and objectification of one’s partner, which in turn is hypothesized to be related to relationship and sexual satisfaction. A sample of undergraduate students (91 women and 68 men) enrolled in a university on the west coast of the United States completed self-report measures of the following variables: self-objectification, objectification of one’s romantic partner, relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, and exposure to objectifying media. Men reported higher levels of partner objectification than did women; there was no gender difference in self-objectification. Self- and partner-objectification were positively correlated; this correlation was especially strong for men. In regression analyses, partner-objectification was predictive of lower levels of relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, a path model revealed that consuming objectifying media is related to lowered relationship satisfaction through the variable of partner-objectification. Finally, self- and partner-objectification were related to lower levels of sexual satisfaction among men. This study provides evidence for the negative effects of objectification in the context of romantic relationships among young adults

Research Mentoring and Scientist Identity: Insights from Undergraduates and their Mentors

Background Mentored research apprenticeships are a common feature of academic outreach programs that aim to promote diversity in science fields. The current study tests for links between three forms of mentoring (instrumental, socioemotional, and negative) and the degree to which undergraduates psychologically identify with science. Participants were 66 undergraduate-mentor dyads who worked together in a research apprenticeship. The undergraduate sample was predominantly composed of women, first-generation college students, and members of ethnic groups that are historically underrepresented in science. Results Findings illustrated that undergraduates who reported receiving more instrumental and socioemotional mentoring were higher in scientist identity. Further, mentors who reported engaging in higher levels of negative mentoring had undergraduates with lower scientist identity. Qualitative data from undergraduates’ mentors provided deeper insight into their motivation to become mentors and how they reason about conflict in their mentoring relationships. Conclusions Discussion highlights theoretical implications and details several methodological recommendations

“Boys Can Be Anything”: Effect of Barbie Play on Girls’ Career Cognitions

Play with Barbie dolls is an understudied source of gendered socialization that may convey a sexualized adult world to young girls. Early exposure to sexualized images may have unintended consequences in the form of perceived limitations on future selves. We investigated perceptions of careers girls felt they could do in the future as compared to the number of careers they felt boys could do as a function of condition (playing with a Barbie or Mrs. Potato Head doll) and type of career (male dominated or female dominated) in a sample of 37 U.S. girls aged 4-7 years old residing in the Pacific Northwest. After a randomly assigned 5-minute exposure to condition, children were asked how many of 10 different occupations they themselves could do in the future and how many of those occupations a boy could do. Data were analyzed with a 2 X 2 X 2 mixed factorial ANOVA. Averaged across condition, girls reported that boys could do significantly more occupations than they could themselves, especially when considering male-stereotyped careers. In addition, girls’ ideas about careers for themselves compared to careers for boys interacted with condition, such that girls who played with Barbie indicated that they felt they had significantly fewer future careers options than boys, while there was no difference between reported number of possible careers for boys and girls reported by girls in the Potato Head condition. Results support predictions from gender socialization and objectification theories.Keywords: Socialization, Objectification theory, Middle childhood, Barbi

Objectification, Self-Objectification, and Societal Change

This review focuses on the ways in which the objectification of individuals and groups of people, as well as the self-objectification that typically develops from such treatment, is implicated in positive and negative societal change. Four areas are reviewed: (a) objectification (including dehumanization, infra-humanization, dehumanized perception, sexualization, and colonialism), (b) self-objectification (including double consciousness, internalized oppression, and colonial mentality), (c) genocide and mass violence, and (c) collective action. After reviewing theories in each area, a set of underlying constructs is presented, organized under higher-order categories. Finally, connections between objectification and genocide perpetration, as well as between self-objectification and collective action, are described. It is concluded that the objectification of other people contributes to societal change that runs counter to principles of equality and respect for others, threatens civil rights, and ultimately can result in genocide or mass killings. Furthermore, self-objectification impairs the ability of oppressed groups to act collectively on their own behalf. In contrast, the process of decolonization supports collective action and positive societal change, in part because it liberates oppressed people from self-objectification

Social motives and cognitive power/sex associations: Predictors of aggressive and affiliative sexual behavior.

In the present study, 170 heterosexual participants (89 men and 81 women) wrote stories about Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) pictures, which were scored for power motivation (nPow), affiliation-intimacy motivation (nAff), and activity inhibition (AI). Participants also reported on aggressive sexuality (the frequency of aggressive and coercive sexual behaviors), and affiliative sexuality (the percentage of sexual encounters with a loved partner). Attitudinal measures (e.g., Rape Myth Acceptance) were also collected. Finally, participants completed a lexical-decision priming task in which power and sexuality words were paired; reaction time for such pairs indexed the size and strength of the cognitive association between these two concepts. For men, higher levels of power motivation and higher amounts of Power $\to$ Sex priming predicted higher levels of aggressive sexual behavior. There was also an over-additive interaction between these two predictors, such that men high in both nPow and Power $\to$ Sex priming were particularly aggressive. The relationship between nPow and aggression was moderated by activity inhibition--only for men low in activity inhibition was the effect of nPow seen. There was no relationship between nAff and aggressive sexuality. For women, aggressive and coercive sexuality was predicted by low levels of nPow and high levels of nAff. There was evidence that both a Power $\to$ Sex cognitive connection and a Sex $\to$ Power connection were related to aggressive sexuality in women. Affiliative sexuality was not adequately explained by the predictors. However, for women low in activity inhibition, there was a negative relationship between affiliative sexuality and nPow. This dissertation offers empirical support for the hypothesis advanced by feminist theorists that a fusion of power and sexuality can have negative consequences. The fusion of power and sexuality interacted with other variables, however, in ways both expected and unexpected. The fact that power motivation amplified the negative effect of a power/sex connection in men, but suppressed it in women, is testament to the complexity of these forces, and the critical importance of looking at gender.Ph.D.Behavioral psychologyPersonality psychologyPsychologySocial psychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/130830/2/9811189.pd