Transitions from heterosexuality to lesbianism: The discursive production of lesbian identities.

This article explored the discursive production of a major disjuncture in sexual identity in adult life: women's accounts of transitions to lesbianism after a substantial period of heterosexuality. 80 semistructured interviews with self-identified lesbians, all with at least 10 yrs prior heterosexual experience (plus additional materials drawn from published autobiographical sources), were analyzed within a social constructionist framework. The article examined the creation of contexts in which sexual identity transitions become possible, explored how such transitions are defined and marked, identified the consequences, and detailed the continuing development of lesbian identity posttransition. In conclusion, the article reflected on the status and salience of such data in supporting the social constructionist position, particularly in the face of the continuing popularity of essentialist theories of sexual identity development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Heterosexual bias in psychological research on lesbianism and male homosexuality.

Heterosexual bias is here defined as a belief system that values heterosexuality as superior to and/or more "natural" than homosexuality. It is argued that the reconceptualization of homosexuality as a valid option for an adult life-style would suggest changes in the questions formulated, the data collected, and the interpretations made in research on lesbianism and male homosexuality. A taxonomy of research questions in this area was generated from English-language journal articles listed in Psychological Abstracts from 1967 through 1974. Case histories, treatment articles, theories, reviews of literature, books, dissertations, and unpublished papers read at conventions were not included. The 139 remaining studies were assessed and reviewed in terms of the extent to which they reflect a change in the social values of the behavior under study. Suggestions are made for priorities in future research. (59 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, language, and influence.

Mixed- and same-sex dyads were observed to examine effects of gender composition on language and of language on gender differences in influence. Ss discussed a topic on which they disagreed. Women were more tentative than men, but only in mixed sex dyads. Women who spoke tentatively were more influential with men and less influential with women. Language had no effect on how influential men were. In a 2nd study, 120 Ss listened to an audiotape of identical persuasive messages presented either by a man or a woman, half of whom spoke tentatively. Female speakers who spoke tentatively were more influential with male Ss and less influential with female Ss than those who spoke assertively. Male speakers were equally influential in each condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, Gender Relations, and the Social Dynamics of Children's Conversations.

The authors investigated the effects of gender on the social dynamics and outcomes of conversations involving 120 children (mean age = 8 years 7 months). Children were taught particular values for different shaped counters and placed in same-gender or mixed-gender pairs with children who were taught different values. Pairs were asked to add the counters together to make a total of 100. Conversations were coded in terms of communication acts and simultaneous speech acts. Boys used more controlling acts overall and more negative interruptions in mixed-gender pairs. Girls used more affiliating acts. All children used more collaborative communication in same-gender pairings. Children whose perspective dominated used more controlling and comparatively fewer affiliating acts. When children reached a compromise, conversations were more collaborative. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychosocial Factors, Gender, and Sleep.

Low social support may contribute to poor sleep, more so than adverse aspects of demand and control and more so for women than men. This study on 1,179 working individuals, 623 women and 556 men, from the Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease (MONICA) study investigated the association between sleep and psychosocial factors. Chi-square analyses investigated the associations among sleep and demand, control, social networks, and emotional support. A logit log-linear model analyzed interactions. More women reported poorer sleep when perceiving adverse psychosocial factors. Interactive effects were found between adverse scores on demand, control, and emotional support. A multivariate partial least square analysis showed that poorer health, pain, and adverse aspects of emotional support and social networks contributed significantly to the pattern of poor sleep. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, alcoholism, and neuropsychological functioning.

35 female and 25 male alcoholics (mean age 45) performed significantly more slowly than similar numbers of age-matched nonalcoholic controls on the Tactual Performance Test (TPT), especially with the left hand. Alcoholism effects were not significant for TPT Memory or Location. Women recalled significantly more shapes but correctly located fewer of those remembered than did men. Results suggest that (a) alcoholism effects on tactual–spatial performance are similar in men and women, (b) right hemisphere functions or less well-practiced skills may be selectively vulnerable to alcoholism, and (c) sex differences exist in tactual memory and spatial location abilities. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facial Appearance, Gender, and Emotion Expression.

Western gender stereotypes describe women as affiliative and more likely to show happiness and men as dominant and more likely to show anger. The authors assessed the hypothesis that the gender-stereotypic effects on perceptions of anger and happiness are partially mediated by facial appearance markers of dominance and affiliation by equating men's and women's faces for these cues. In 2 studies, women were rated as more angry and men as more happy-a reversal of the stereotype. Ratings of sadness, however, were not systematically affected. It is posited that markers of affiliation and dominance, themselves confounded with gender, interact with the expressive cues for anger and happiness to produce emotional perceptions that have been viewed as simple gender stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple social identities and stereotype threat: Imbalance, accessibility, and working memory.

In 4 experiments, the authors showed that concurrently making positive and negative self-relevant stereotypes available about performance in the same ability domain can eliminate stereotype threat effects. Replicating past work, the authors demonstrated that introducing negative stereotypes about women’s math performance activated participants’ female social identity and hurt their math performance (i.e., stereotype threat) by reducing working memory. Moving beyond past work, it was also demonstrated that concomitantly presenting a positive self-relevant stereotype (e.g., college students are good at math) increased the relative accessibility of females’ college student identity and inhibited their gender identity, eliminating attendant working memory deficits and contingent math performance decrements. Furthermore, subtle manipulations in questions presented in the demographic section of a math test eliminated stereotype threat effects that result from women reporting their gender before completing the test. This work identifies the motivated processes through which people’s social identities became active in situations in which self-relevant stereotypes about a stigmatized group membership and a nonstigmatized group membership were available. In addition, it demonstrates the downstream consequences of this pattern of activation on working memory and performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender labeling, gender stereotyping, and parenting behaviors.

Are gender labeling and gender stereotyping in 24-, 30-, and 36-mo-old children related to each other and to mothers' sex-role attitudes and responses to sex-typed behavior in a free-play situation with their children? The gender stereotyping measure indicated that gender schemata include information that is metaphorically rather than literally associated with each sex. Children who understood labels for boys and girls displayed more knowledge of gender stereotypes than children who did not. Mothers whose children had mastered labels for boys and girls endorsed more traditional attitudes toward women and toward sex roles within the family. The same mothers also initiated and reinforced more sex-typed toy play with their children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, politics, and psychology's ways of knowing.

Recent work on the psychology of gender has emphasized comparisons of men and women. Such comparisons rest on a view of gender as an individual difference or psychological attribute. Feminist theorists have challenged this view as limited and inadequate. In place of it, a variety of alternative conceptions of gender are emerging. These conceptions shift the focus of analysis from the individual to interpersonal and institutional arenas. Moreover, they dispute the idea of gender as static, unitary, and separable from other markers of social identity and status. In contrast to Alice Eagly (see record 1995-21141-001), I assert that the production of knowledge (whether by scientific procedures or other means) is not set apart from society, but rather is always and inevitably embedded within it. Therefore, I call for efforts to uncover the ways in which psychological knowledge is shaped by ongoing societal struggles and cultural politics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, victimization, and outcomes: Reconceptualizing risk.

Large-scale studies of gender differences in psychopathological reactions to victimization have focused on posttraumatic stress disorder, overlooking other trauma-related disorders. The present study expands this literature with a contextualized examination of interpersonal aggression exposure and sequelae. Using k-means cluster analysis on a sample of 16,000, the authors identified 8 distinct profiles of exposure to sexual violence, physical assault, stalking, and emotional abuse. Analyses of covariance then suggested links among victimization profile, gender, and mental and physical health. Results revealed no meaningful interactive effects of gender and interpersonal aggression on outcomes, once lifetime exposure to aggressive events was adequately taken into account. These findings argue against theories of female victims' greater vulnerability to pathological outcomes, instead linking risk to exposure history. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disability and autonomy: Priming alternative identities.

Objective: Despite the broad stigmatization that people with disabilities experience, the ways they respond as targets of prejudice have received little attention in the psychological literature. The present study examined the reactions of college students with disabilities to being primed with different aspects of their identity and how individual differences in stigma consciousness moderate this effect. Design: After being primed with their identity as a person with a disability or a student, college students with disabilities (n = 116) completed measures of autonomy-related thoughts, help-seeking, and stigma consciousness. Results: Students primed with their disability status activated autonomy-related thoughts less than the participants primed with their student identity. Moreover, as predicted, the priming manipulation had a stronger impact for participants higher in stigma consciousness. Across all participants, greater activation of autonomy-related thoughts was associated with a lower likelihood of seeking help. Conclusion: Depending on the aspect of their identity that is most salient in a given context and their level of stigma consciousness, people with disabilities can access autonomy-related thoughts to a greater or lesser extent. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and self-esteem.

Where does self-esteem (SE) come from? Three experiments explored the idea that men's and women's SE arise, in part, from different sources. It was hypothesized that SE is related to successfully measuring up to culturally mandated, gender-appropriate norms—separation and independence for men and connection and interdependence for women. Results from Study 1 suggest that men's SE can be linked to an individuation process in which one's personal distinguishing achievements are emphasized. Results from Study 2 suggest that women's SE can be linked to a process in which connections and attachments to important others are emphasized. Study 3 demonstrates that failing to perform well on gender-appropriate tasks engendered a defensive, compensatory reaction, but only in Ss with high SE. These findings are discussed with regard to their implications for the structure and dynamics of the self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Crafting identities and accessing opportunities post-Brown.

Decades following Brown v. Board of Education (1954), issues regarding the effects of skin color, poverty, and racial differences in the availability of protective factors persist. For a multiethnic sample of mainly African American (56%), female (69%), and high-achieving (65%) youths, a dual-axis model of vulnerability is used to compare four groups of youths identified as high, masked, low, and undetermined vulnerability on the basis of the presence of risk and protective factors. Risks included level of poverty, number of parents in home, and skin-color pigmentation. Protective factors included youths' perceptions of school climate, parental monitoring, and consonance between skin pigmentation and preferred skin color. The author suggests that 50 years post-Brown, issues concerning White privilege, color stereotyping, power discrepancies, and economic disparities maintain "invisible" and persistent hurdles for vulnerable youths who vary on available protective factors. Findings confirm the impact of vulnerability on psychosocial and achievement outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of commitment to role identities.

Commitment to social identities has been postulated as a central organizing feature of the self-system, yet the only widely used instrument for assessing identities is the Twenty Statements Test. R. C. Wylie (1974) has criticized the use of the test as a measure of self because of its failure to provide reliable and valid results. An alternative method of assessing commitments and tests of its validity are described in the present paper. Study 1 (309 undergraduates) demonstrated that a 23-item index can be used to assess commitment to a number of diverse identities. Commitment scores based on the index correspond to the placement of identities in a hierarchy of importance based on subjective rank orderings. In Study 2 (288 Ss), a multitrait–multimethod matrix was created to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of the 23-item index for the identities of peer, religious participant, romantic partner, and family member. Correlations between commitment to each of these 4 identities and related attitude measures are reported. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feature integration across space, time, and orientation.

The perception of a visual target can be strongly influenced by flanking stimuli. In static displays, performance on the target improves when the distance to the flanking elements increases—presumably because feature pooling and integration vanishes with distance. Here, we studied feature integration with dynamic stimuli. We show that features of single elements presented within a continuous motion stream are integrated largely independent of spatial distance (and orientation). Hence, space-based models of feature integration cannot be extended to dynamic stimuli. We suggest that feature integration is guided by perceptual grouping operations that maintain the identity of perceptual objects over space and time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, role, and illness behavior in a military population.

Investigated the effects of gender and role stress on reporting and response to symptoms in a military population. 46 female and 44 male enlisted soldiers (mean age 22.9 yrs), who were members of administrative or combat support units, were interviewed and asked to keep a health diary for 30 days. Results show that although females reported twice as many health problems in the initial interview, there were no significant gender differences observed in symptom reporting on the health diary. Significant differences were obtained, however, between members of administrative and support units, with members of combat support units reporting twice as many symptoms in the diary. Overall, the results are interpreted as emphasizing the impact of occupational stress and group cohesion rather than gender as influences on illness behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender identity and adjustment in black, Hispanic, and white preadolescents.

The generality of S. K. Egan and D. G. Perry's (2001) model of gender identity and adjustment was evaluated by examining associations between gender identity (felt gender typicality, felt gender contentedness, and felt pressure for gender conformity) and social adjustment in 863 White, Black, and Hispanic 5th graders (mean age = 11.1 years). Relations between gender identity and adjustment varied across ethnic/racial groups, indicating that S. K. Egan and D. G. Perry's model requires amendment. It is suggested that the implications of gender identity for adjustment depend on the particular meanings that a child attaches to gender (e.g., the specific attributes the child regards as desirable for each sex); these meanings may vary across and within ethnic/racial groups. Cross-ethnic/racial investigation can aid theory building by pointing to constructs that are neglected in research with a single ethnic/racial group but that are crucial components of basic developmental processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)