Perceptions of sexist language and its relationship to attitudes toward women and social roles : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

The language about women reflects the attitudes of men toward women and to the extent that women use them, the attitudes of women toward themselves. The relationship between language and the attitudes of those who use it is not one-way. Language reflects the attitudes of those who use it but it can also create and maintain attitudes and stereotypes. Hence the feminists' attack on the English language. The trend to using non-sexist language is a conscious effort to change our thought by changing our language. The present study investigated the existence of a relationship between attitudes toward women, social attitudes, and people's perceptions of sexist language for 151 participants. The sample included two student groups (internally enroled students and extramural students) and a non-student sample. The sample completed self-report questionnaires on their judgements of language as sexist, their perceptions of sexist language as a problem, and attitudes toward women and social issues. The findings demonstrated that there is a relationship between sexist language and the attitudes people espouse. Liberal social attitudes and liberal attitudes toward women and gender roles were found to correlate with easier recognition of linguistic sexism. Traditional attitudes toward gender roles and conservative social attitudes resulted in a failure to perceive gender-biased language as sexist

Young People and Digital Intimacies. What is the evidence and what does it mean? Where next?

The digital age makes new forms of connection possible, enabling ‘digital intimacies’ including the many practices of communicating, producing and sharing intimate content (‘sexting’; selfies; making, viewing and circulating sexual content; using hook-up apps; and searching online for advice about sex). Where young people engage in digital intimacies, policymakers have tended to respond with alarm and commissioned research premised on demonstrating negative outcomes. Young people’s take up of technologies is contrasted with previous generations and ideas of ‘healthy’, ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ sexual development which ignores and marginalises diversity of sexuality and sexual expression, and leads to campaigns that seek to supervise and regulate youth sexuality. This in turn results in legislation and censorship with consequences including blocking websites for sexual abuse support and sexual education. The government has suspended introduction of Age Verification for pornographic websites but is pressing ahead with its ‘Online Harms’ White Paper which plans for broader and more comprehensive regulatory frameworks in the interests of protecting children and young people in online spaces. The UK government has positioned itself as a world leader in developing new regulatory approaches to tackle online harms but the evidence base for those approaches is neither robust nor nuanced enough to respond to the increasing mediatisation of everyday life and sexual identity. This briefing advocates for a broader recognition of young people’s investments in digital intimacies, acknowledging what growing up and learning about sex in the digital age means for young people in order to inform future policy and practice. Policies that are informed by robust research and understandings that accommodate the nuanced practices of digital intimacy will provide the support that young people need and deserve as they navigate their media lives, develop awareness of ethical and unethical behaviour, and what is right for them

A discriminating probe of gravity at cosmological scales

The standard cosmological model is based on general relativity and includes dark matter and dark energy. An important prediction of this model is a fixed relationship between the gravitational potentials responsible for gravitational lensing and the matter overdensity. Alternative theories of gravity often make different predictions for this relationship. We propose a set of measurements which can test the lensing/matter relationship, thereby distinguishing between dark energy/matter models and models in which gravity differs from general relativity. Planned optical, infrared and radio galaxy and lensing surveys will be able to measure $E_G$, an observational quantity whose expectation value is equal to the ratio of the Laplacian of the Newtonian potentials to the peculiar velocity divergence, to percent accuracy. We show that this will easily separate alternatives such as $\Lambda$CDM, DGP, TeVeS and $f(R)$ gravity.Comment: v2: minor revisions in the main text, fig, table and references. Slightly longer than the PRL version in press. V3: update the figure (minor change due to a coding bug. No other change

«Nuevas sentencias sentía» : la recepción de «La Celestina» y la miseria y la dignidad del hombre

Este artículo pretende entender el significado de La Celestina a través de su recepción. Sostiene que surgen nuevos sentidos cuando cambia el contexto en el que la obra se imprima y se lee. Como sugiere el prólogo de la Tragicomedia, cada interacción textual resalta nuevos significados que pueden sobrepasar los del momento en el que se concibió. Utilizando un método sincrónico y comparativo, analiza el 'horizonte de expectativas' de la recepción de La Celestina en España e Italia del siglo dieciséis cuando alcanzó el momento cumbre de su popularidad. Se centra en los conceptos de nosce te ipsum y de la soledad, contextualizando su representación en los debates ideológicos sobre la miseria y la dignidad del hombre que circulaban en el Renacimiento y en un ambiente que examinaba la posibilidad del ateísmo. Yuxtapone La Celestina con otros textos que formaban parte de este debate supranacional tal como el Diálogo de la dignidad del hombre por Fernán Pérez de Oliva (1546). Mantiene que la representación del autoconocimiento y de la soledad por La Celestina y su relación con los debates sobre la condición humana superan sus origines medievales en este nuevo horizonte.This article seeks to understand the significance of Celestina (1499) as it moves through time. It contends that new meanings emerge when the context in which the work is printed and read changes. As the prologue to the Tragicomedia intimates, each new act of engagement brings to the fore meanings that may not have been intended or even conceivable at the point of its composition. Taking a synchronic and comparative approach, the article looks at the 'horizon of expectations' of Celestina's reception in sixteenthcentury Spain and Italy, when at the height of its popularity. Focusing on the issues of self-knowledge and solitude, it contextualises their portrayal within ideological debates about the misery and dignity of man that circulated in the Renaissance and within an environment that was considering the possibility of disbelief. It juxtaposes Celestina against other contemporary texts involved in this supranational debate, such as Fernán Pérez de Oliva's Diálogo de la dignidad del hombre (1546). It argues that, in this new horizon, Celestina's portrayal of self-knowledge and solitude and its engagement with debates about the misery and dignity of man goes beyond its medieval origins

‘Hidden habitus’: a qualitative study of socio-ecological influences on drinking practices and social identity in mid-adolescence

This study explored mid-adolescents’ views and experiences of socio-ecological influences on their drinking practices in order to help inform the development of interventions to reduce alcohol-related risk. We conducted 31 in-depth interviews with young people aged 13–17 in North East England. Verbatim interview transcripts and field notes were coded systematically and analysed thematically, following the principles of constant comparison. We adopted Bourdieu’s idea of social game-playing and elements of his conceptual toolkit (particularly habitus, capital and field) during analysis. Analysis yielded three intersecting themes: (1) ‘drinking etiquette’: conveying taste and disgust; (2) ‘playing the drinking game’: demonstrating cultural competency; (3) ‘hidden habitus’—the role of alcohol marketing. Our work demonstrates that there is a nexus of influential factors which come together to help shape and reinforce mid-adolescents’ behaviour, norms and values in relation to alcohol consumption. Drinking practices are not just formed by friendships and family traditions, these are also subject to wider cultural shaping including by the alcohol industry which can encourage brand identification, and gear specific products to add ‘distinction’. However young people are not inactive players and they use aspects of capital and social games to help cement their identity and present themselves in particular ways which in turn are influenced by age, gender and social status. Guided by promising work in the tobacco field, interventions which focus on critical awareness of the framing of alcohol products by key stakeholders, such as policymakers, commercial industry and public health professionals, and by wider society may facilitate behaviour change among young people