The Association Between Gay Men's Stereotypic Beliefs About Drag Queens and Their Endorsement of Hypermasculinity

To date, few researchers have investigated gay men's stereotypic beliefs about drag queens and the association between these beliefs and individual difference variables such as hypermasculinity. To address this omission, 118 men self-identifying as non-heterosexual completed an online survey consisting of an adjective checklist about drag queens and a psychometrically sound indicant of hypermasculinity. As predicted, participants who were more likely to endorse hypermasculine belief statements tended to perceive negatively valenced attributes as more characteristic of drag queens. Possible explanations for this relationship, limitations associated with the current study, and directions for future research are delineated.     

An Evaluation of Caller Satisfaction with Solution-Focused Telephone Counselling

Abstract

‘Practice Forum’ is intended to provide a forum for social work practitioners to share their practice with others; to describe what they are doing and assess its effectiveness.

We extend an invitation to all social work practitioners to submit articles for ‘Practice Forum’ and we look forward to receiving your contribution.

The telephone is a potentially valuable intervention tool in family counselling. The Child, Adolescent & Family Health Service has been experimenting with a response which combines the traditional advantages of telephone counselling with aspects of Steve deShazer's solution-focused approach (deShazer 1985). In 1990 a study was conducted to evaluate caller satisfaction with this approach. Results indicate a high level of satisfaction with the counselling. At a time of increasing funding cuts and lengthening waiting lists, it is important that as many options as possible remain available to our clients. An expansion in effective telephone counselling services may well be one way of achieving this.     

A Systematic Review of Sexual Dysfunction Measures for Gay Men: How Do Current Measures Measure Up?

The measurement of subjective components of sexual functioning is of increasing importance in clinical research and practice. Differences have been reported in prevalence rates and experiences of sexual difficulties between heterosexual and gay men. The aim of this article is to identify reliable and valid measures of sexual dysfunction suitable for use with gay men. Seven measures were reviewed; details about item development, dimensionality, reliability, and validity are provided. Heteronormative and heterosexist wording were evident throughout. Several areas of concern emerged in relation to psychometric properties (e.g., questionable validity). No psychometrically robust sexual function measure was identified for use with gay populations.     

Age-sex structure of the United States in 2000: Early results from Census 2000

Recently data on age and sex for the United States have beenreleased in the Census 2000 data product Summary File 1. This paper presents someearly analysis on the shape of the age and sex structure from Census 2000 data throughstatistics and graphics on national and sub-national levels. Also highlighted are comparisonswith data from the 1990 census.     

Evaluation of changes to family income supplement

The work described in this paper was commissioned by the DHSS policy branch responsible for family benefits. The problem is rather more specific than those addressed by the studies described in the paper by Holdaway and Partridge. It does however parallel at least one of the observations made there. The study started out with a relatively broad brief but was constrained by events to concentrate on one particular problem, namely forecasting the cost and caseload of Family Income Supplement.     

The state of decision support systems: A review

Many organisations are now realising that information technology can make a significant contribution to their operations. Recent developments in decision support software are such that the time may have come when information technology will contribute significantly to managerial decision-making. This paper considers these developments alongside the organisational issues involved in decision-making, and the current position of IT in many mature organisations. The conclusion is that the new range of decision support software, whilst opening up further areas for computerised decision support, is unlikely to compete successfully for corporate IT funds. Use of the new tools will be restricted to small, isolated applications.     

Exploring the relationship between public opinion and personal attitudes and behavior toward lesbians and gay men: social conformity revisited

This study investigated the relationship between social conformity, gender-role egalitarianism, and personal levels of heterosexism, or prejudice based on same-sex orientation. Mock public opinion polls of a positive or negative nature regarding same-sex orientation were used to study attitudinal and behavioral change of participants and attitude-behavior consistency. The study sample included 194 undergraduate students from a Midwestern university. A correlation existed between participants' traditional gender role beliefs and heterosexism. Participants who viewed the positive public opinion poll demonstrated behavioral support for a lesbian and gay organization, as did participants with positive attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Findings are analyzed within a social prejudice framework.     

Emotional Reactions of Heterosexual Men to Gay Imagery

Studies of homonegativity in the general population typically use scales to examine the attitudes of a heterosexual sample toward gay men and lesbian women. However, these scales fail to address that accepting gay and lesbian people in theory is not tantamount to accepting the sexual practices engaged in by gay and lesbian people. As a result, relying on homonegativity scales and hypothetical scenarios (i.e., asking a participant to imagine a gay man or lesbian woman from personality characteristics provided) may not offer a complete view of the complexities of homonegativity. To explore this possibility, 83 men self-identifying as either largely or exclusively heterosexual rated one of three groups of images (romantic gay, erotic gay, and control) on the basis of five questions related to their emotional responses. A psychometrically sound homonegativity scale was also completed. Results indicated that homonegativity was a significant predictor of decreased happiness, anger, disgust, task enjoyment, and reported liking of the imagery. Furthermore, homonegativity was found to moderate the association between exposure to the romantic images and four of the five emotional responses (happiness, anger, disgust, and liking). Exposure to the set of erotic gay images, however, was associated with negative emotional responses, regardless of participants’ self-reported level of homonegativity (i.e., overt homonegativity possessed less moderational power for this type of imagery). These findings suggest that standard scales of homonegative attitudes may be unable to capture the affective negativity that heterosexual men experience when viewing gay male intimacy.