Sexual Identity in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer or Questioning Emerging Adults: The Role of Parental Rejection, and Sexuality Specific Family Support

The present study provides critical contributions to the study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) emerging adults by examining the role of family and sexuality specific family support, as well as the moderating effect of gender, on sexual identity development. Specifically, the role of mother and father rejection and sexuality specific family support on both affirmed identity and identity struggles of students were assessed. Using a sample of 338 LGBTQ emerging adults at a midwestern University, findings illustrate that for sexual identity development, mother and father parental rejection positively influenced identity struggles while sexuality specific family support positively influenced affirmed identity. Also, moderation by participant gender was not supported. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

THE ROLE OF FACIAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND GENDER ON CHANGE DETECTION AND RECOGNITION MEMORY

This study aimed to investigate the effect of automatic attentional bias on change detection and recognition memory performance. In this context, attractive faces, which have priority in attention selection, were used as stimuli. The data of 110 participants were analyzed (54 females, 56 males, Mage = 20.87 ± 1.80). As a result, there was a significant effect of attractiveness [F(2.73, 295.16) = 37.33, p < .001, ƞp2 = .26] and model gender [F(1, 108) = 6.47, p < .05, ƞp2 = .06] on change detection performance. Accordingly, the fastest performance is when only the target was an attractive female; the slowest performance was observed when only the distractors were attractive female. On the other hand, the data of 94 participants (46 females, 48 males, Mage = 21.05 ± 1.95) were analyzed for the recognition memory. Accordingly, low memory performance was generally observed. Memory sensitivity was significantly lower for attractive faces (-.31) than average-looking ones (.59). Besides, bias to respond “old” for attractive faces were higher than average-looking faces for both model genders. Therefore, the findings suggest that the decision criterion was more liberal for attractive faces (for females -.06, for males -.46) than average faces (for females .15, for males .33). On the other hand, there was no significant effect of the participant gender on both attention and memory tasks (p > .05). The study is the first known change detection and recognition memory study to examine participant gender, model gender, and attractiveness together. The limitations of the study and suggestions for future studies are handled in the discussion section.

An Exploration of Client Experiences in a Combination of Individual and Family Counseling

Researchers explored client meaningful experiences in a combination of individual and family counseling in this constructivist phenomenological study. The sample consisted of seven participants (three families) who ranged in age from 10 to 51. Participant racial/ethnic identities included two White, two biracial, and two Black. Participant gender identities included five females and two males. Two interviews per client family (one interview following an individual counseling session and another following a family counseling session) revealed the following themes: (a) understanding self and others, with subthemes gaining understanding and acceptance of self, better understanding of each other and how to be with each other, and learning coping skills; (b) setting and working toward goals; (c) processing issues in session, with subthemes counseling is not always what we want, but is maybe what we need, and tension of family versus individual counseling; (d) the counselor; and (e) play.

Functional perceptions of relational success and infidelity concerns for violators of gendered naming conventions in marriage

Replicating and extending previous findings, we report two high-powered studies exploring how heterosexual men and women’s decisions to change or keep their surnames following marriage influence perceptions of various marital outcomes as a function of perceivers’ sexist attitudes. Participants in Study 1 evaluated men and women who indicated keeping or changing their surname after marriage, along with an articulated reason for their decision, specifically either to disrupt or reinforce gender norms. Study 2 removed the reasoning of their choice. Independent of participant gender or whether decision reasoning was provided, both studies demonstrated that targets who violated gendered naming norms (e.g., female keepers and male changers) were perceived more negatively than those who adhered to these norms (e.g., male keepers and female changers), particularly for participants higher in hostile sexism. We frame these findings from complementary evolutionary and sociocultural perspectives.

Belief in sexism shift: Defining a new form of contemporary sexism and introducing the belief in sexism shift scale (BSS scale)

The belief that the target of sexism has shifted from women to men is gaining popularity. Yet despite its potential theoretical and practical importance, the belief that men are now the primary target of sexism has not been systematically defined nor has it been reliably measured. In this paper, we define the belief in sexism shift (BSS) and introduce a scale to measure it. We contend that BSS constitutes a new form of contemporary sexism characterized by the perception that anti-male discrimination is pervasive, that it now exceeds anti-female discrimination, and that it is caused by women’s societal advancement. In four studies (N = 666), we develop and test a concise, one-dimensional, 15-item measure of BSS: the BSS scale. Our findings demonstrate that BSS is related to, yet distinct from other forms of sexism (traditional, modern, and ambivalent sexism). Moreover, our results show that the BSS scale is a stable and reliable measure of BSS across different samples, time, and participant gender. The BSS scale is also less susceptible to social desirability concerns than other sexism measures. In sum, the BSS scale can be a valuable tool to help understand a new and potentially growing type of sexism that may hinder women in unprecedented ways.

Distinctive plumage patterns enable individual recognition of the Australian Magpie Cracticus tibicen

ABSTRACT We investigated whether the plumage patterns of the Australian Magpie Cracticus tibicen, a mediumsized, black and white bird, common over most of mainland Australia and Tasmania, including cities and towns, were sufficiently different and distinctive to allow humans to identify individual birds. Eighty participants took part in our pattern matching experiment to see how many of 10 photographs of individual birds they placed correctly below a panel showing 20 individual birds, each illustrated with three different photographs. Participants were from a range of ages, although the majority were high school students. All but two successfully matched some of the birds but there were considerable differences in accuracy and speed of performance. We tested differences in accuracy and time taken by participant, gender, age, and whether testing alone or testing at the same time as four other participants. We concluded that it is possible for humans to recognise individual Australian Magpies based on the birds’ plumage.

Pornography: How Does the Boomer Generation and Older Predict Others’ Viewing Time?

The increase of exposure to online pornography has decreased the age of initial exposure to pornography. However, very little is known about the outcomes resulting from increased pornography exposure in the Baby Boomer generation and beyond. The current study asked what predictors were significant in individuals born in 1965 and earlier when predicting the perceived pornography viewing time for the average man and woman. To answer this question, a nationally representative population (N = 1073, 510 males) completed a web-based survey measuring the age of the participant, gender of the participant, self-directed sexual behaviors (“How frequently have you masturbated while viewing pornography alone?”), partner-directed sexual behaviors (“How frequently have you viewed pornography with a partner?”), a religiosity index (“How important is your religion?”), and the predicted perceived time that a woman and man watches pornography, Results showed that perceived time that the average man spent viewing pornography was significantly predicted by age of the participant, gender of the participant, self-motivated sexual behaviors and partner-motivated sexual behaviors. Religiosity was not a significant predictor. In the regression predicting perceived time that the average woman viewed pornography were age of the participant, self-motivated sexual behaviors, and partner-motivated sexual behaviors. Gender of the participant and religiosity of the participant were not significant predictors. Further research should expand this work to a lifespan perspective and longitudinal studies.

The male bias of a generically-intended personal pronoun in language processing

A self-paced reading experiment tested if a generically-used masculine personal pronoun leads to a male bias in online processing. We presented Dutch native speakers (N=95, 47 male) with generic statements featuring the masculine pronoun hij ‘he’ (e.g., Someone who always promises that he will really be on time, such as Ms/Mr Knoop, will sometimes be late anyway). We further presented participants with control items expressing the same meaning, but without the pronoun. Reading times were significantly higher when a female individual was given as an example (i.e., Ms Knoop in the example above) following the masculine generic pronoun hij ‘he’, but not in the control condition. This effect did not interact with participant gender. This shows that the generically-intended masculine personal pronoun leads to a male bias in online processing for male as well as female participants. Masculine personal pronouns are still commonly used for generic reference in many languages such as Dutch, but the results of this experiment refute the notion that a pronoun such as hij ‘he’ can be readily processed as gender-neutral.