What is sex and why does it matter? A motivational approach to exploring individuals' definitions of sex

What sexual experiences qualify as "having sex"? We investigated two assumptions apparently underlying research on how individuals make these judgments: that individuals have clear definitions regarding what qualifies as sex and that these judgments depend on how closely the activity being assessed matches their definitions of sex. Using open-ended questionnaires, 100 students, 51 women and 49 men, described their experiences that were "almost but not quite sex" or "just barely sex" and situations where there was uncertainty or disagreement about whether the experience qualified as "sex." In contrast to the above assumptions, many respondents expressed ambiguity about their definitions of sex, and their decisions about labeling an experience as "sex" often seemed influenced by the consequences of applying this label.     

A gender-based incidence study of workplace violence in psychiatric and forensic settings

Limited data exist analyzing the role of gender in workplace violence in health care settings. This study examined whether different types of threatening incidents with patients (physical, verbal, sexual, or posturing) were salient to male versus female staff across psychiatric settings (inpatient forensic, inpatient acute/chronic psychiatric, and outpatient psychiatric). Results indicated that although women disproportionately experienced sexualized threats, they were not more likely to report such incidents as salient and threatening. The study also assessed the extent to which situational variables contributed to staff's feelings of threat. Results showed that rapport with the patient, quality of relationships with coworkers, and presence of coworkers in the area were not significantly related to how threatened staff felt in a recent threatening incident. Findings are discussed within the context of staff training and organizational benefits.     

A mixed-methods examination of sexual coercion and degradation among women in violent relationships who do and do not report forced sex

Although partner sexual abuse is clearly an important dimension of partner violence, it has received less research attention than partner physical and psychological abuse. This article contributes to the literature by examining similarities and differences in coercive and degrading sexual tactics experienced by women who do (n = 31) and women who do not (n = 31) report forced sex using quantitative and qualitative data. The women in the sample had all been recently (within the past 6 months) stalked by a violent intimate partner. Results suggest that both women who do and women who do not report forced sex experience various coercive and degrading tactics within the context of sexual activity. Results also suggest that multiple sexual abuse dimensions should be considered within the context of partner psychological abuse, physical abuse, and stalking and that more research on understanding the outcomes associated with dimensions of sexual abuse within the context of physical and psychological abuse is needed.     

Television Reports of Forensic Hypnosis: What's on the News?

This paper presents a content analysis of television news and current affairs reports of forensic hypnosis focusing on the information conveyed about the nature of hypnosis, the introduction of hypnosis to criminal investigation, the impact of hypnosis on memory, the usefulness of hypnosis in criminal investigation, and the recognition of potential problems associated with forensic hypnosis. Findings indicate that the reports conveyed simplistic notions about hypnosis and memory, and were encouraging and uncritical in their presentation of forensic hypnosis. The research is discussed in terms of the possible influence of the reports on public opinion.     

The Longitudinal Relationships Among Injunctive Norms and Hooking Up Attitudes and Behaviors in College Students

Limited research has explored the influence of perceived injunctive norms for distal (e.g., typical student) and proximal (e.g., close friend and parents) referents on hooking up. The current study examined the longitudinal relationships among perceived injunctive norms, personal approval, and hooking up behavior, and the moderating effects of gender in a sample of heavy-drinking college students. At Time 1, participants completed Web-based assessments of personal approval of hooking up and perceptions of close friend, parent, and typical student approval. Three months later, participants reported on whether they had hooked up. The results of a path analysis indicated that greater perceived friend and parent approval predicted greater personal approval. Further, greater perceived approval by close friends and parents indirectly contributed to hooking up behavior as mediated by participants’ own approval. Multigroup analyses indicated that close friend injunctive norms were a stronger predictor of student approval for men as compared to women. While previous research has often failed to find an association between perceived injunctive norms and hooking up, the current findings suggest that this may reflect the use of distal referents. The findings underscore that perceptions of close friend and family approval may be useful predictors of hooking up behavior.     

Manipulated Masculinities: Agribusiness,Deskilling, and the Rise of the Businessman‐Farmer in the United States

In this study we examine how the agribusiness industry works to manipulate conventional farming masculinities in the United States to facilitate agricultural deskilling, a process that has serious implications for the future of sustainable agriculture uptake among American farmers. Through analyzing one year's worth of advertisements in three conventional farming magazines and through conducting participant observation and interviews at the second largest indoor farming show in the United States, we examine the ways in which agribusiness companies, such as chemical, seed, and farm machinery manufacturers, represent farmers and farming masculinities in their advertisements and marketing materials. We observe a shift occurring among certain agribusiness sectors away from representations of a rugged, strong, solitary farmer, who dominates nature through his manual labor, to depictions of a “businessman” farmer, who farms in collaboration with certain qualified partners (i.e., company representatives). We ultimately argue that these new representations of farming masculinity aim to more deeply entrench conventional farmers' dependence on chemical inputs and agribusiness products by promoting a process of deskilling, effectively alienating the farmer from the land.     

Infants’ learning of non-adjacent regularities from visual sequences

Tracking adjacent (AD) and non-adjacent (NAD) dependencies in a sequence of elements is critical for the development of many complex abilities, such as language acquisition and social interaction. While learning of AD in infancy is a domain-general ability that is functioning across different domains, infants’ processing of NAD has been reported only for speech sequences. Here, we tested 9- to 12- and 13- to 15-month-olds’ ability to extract AxB grammars in visual sequences of unfamiliar elements. Infants were habituated to a series of 3-visual arrays following an AxB grammar in which the first element (A) predicted the third element (B), while intervening X elements changed continuously. Following habituation, infants were tested with 3-item arrays in which initial and final positions were switched (novel) or kept consistent with the habituation phase (familiar). Older infants successfully recognized the familiar AxB grammar at test, whereas the younger group showed some sensitivity to extract to NAD, albeit in a less robust form. This finding provides the first evidence that the ability to track NAD is a domain-general ability that is present also in the visual domain and that the sensitivity to such dependencies is related to developmental changes, as demonstrated in the auditory domain.     

Validity of The Party Exercise for Determining Holland Codes

The Party exercise, found on many career guidance websites and published annually in the best‐selling job‐hunting book What Color Is Your Parachute? (Bolles, 2020), claims to provide a quick and easy way to determine a person's Holland RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional) code. We examined whether this commonly used exercise indeed accurately predicts Holland codes. Undergraduate students (324 women, 147 men) responded to The Party exercise and then the Self‐Directed Search (Holland & Messer, 2013). Results indicated that The Party exercise has some ability to predict some RIASEC types. However, the results do not support use of this popular exercise in lieu of a career assessment measure that has well‐established validity.     

Loneliness and Social Isolation in a Sample of Youth Hospitalized for Psychiatric Illness

Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal - Social connections can act as a protective factor against long term consequences impacting the physical and emotional well-being of youth. This purpose...