On Taboos
Westermarck, Freud, and the Incest Taboo: Does Familial Resemblance Activate Sexual Attraction?
Chris Fraley & Michael Marks
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Evolutionary psychological theories assume that sexual aversions toward kin are triggered by a nonconscious mechanism that estimates the genetic relatedness between self and other. This article presents an alternative perspective that assumes that incest avoidance arises from consciously acknowledged taboos and that when awareness of the relationship between self and other is bypassed, people find individuals who resemble their kin more sexually appealing. Three experiments demonstrate that people find others more sexually attractive if they have just been subliminally exposed to an image of their opposite-sex parent (Experiment 1) or if the face being rated is a composite image based on the self (Experiment 2). This finding is reversed when people are aware of the implied genetic relationship (Experiment 3). These findings have implications for a century-old debate between E. Westermarck and S. Freud, as well as contemporary research on evolution, mate choice, and sexual imprinting.
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Concealment and Ego Depletion: Does "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Hinder Performance?
Clayton Critcher & Melissa Ferguson
Cornell Working Paper, June 2010
Abstract:
People possess concealable identities (e.g., sexual orientation) that it sometimes behooves them to conceal, but at what cost? In the present research, participants who had to conceal their sexual orientation during a short interview showed subsequent self-regulatory deficits in intellectual acuity (Studies 1-2, 4) and physical strength (Study 3). Studies 3-5 experimentally distinguished between two mechanistic accounts of the depletion effect: the need to monitor one's speech for content to inhibit (self-monitoring) or the need to alter or embellish the content of one's speech (impression management). Studies 4 and 5 provided support for the self-monitoring hypothesis: Participants continued to show ego depletion effects when concealing content they would not have spontaneously revealed. Merely having to alter or embellish one's speech did not have a similar effect (Studies 3 and 5). The results have clear implications for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and other policies that mandate identity concealment.
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Disgust: A predictor of social conservatism and prejudicial attitudes toward homosexuals
John Terrizzi, Natalie Shook & Larry Ventis
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Disgust is a universal human emotion that evolved to protect individuals from ingesting harmful substances such as toxins and pathogens. Recent research suggests that disgust is a component of a "behavioral immune system" that encourages individuals to avoid people and situations that could potentially result in bodily contamination. The purpose of the current research was to explore the role of social conservatism in the link between disgust and prejudicial attitudes toward homosexuals. The results of a correlational study (Study 1) indicated that disgust sensitivity was positively correlated with socially conservative values. However, the relation was specific to conservative values regarding intergroup relations and potential contamination. In Study 2, disgust was experimentally manipulated. Inducing disgust resulted in increased prejudicial attitudes toward contact with homosexuals for conservative individuals and reduced prejudice for liberals. The results of these studies support the claim that disgust is part of a "behavioral immune system" that promotes socially conservative value systems and can lead to increased negative attitudes toward outgroups.
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Sexual orientation and earnings: A register data-based approach to identify homosexuals
Ali Ahmed & Mats Hammarstedt
Journal of Population Economics, June 2010, Pages 835-849
Abstract:
This paper examines earnings differentials between homo- and heterosexual individuals by identifying sexual orientation with the help of information from register data. Register data enable us to avoid the misclassifications of sexual orientation often mentioned as a potential bias in survey-based studies. The results show that gay men are at an earnings disadvantage as compared to male heterosexuals while the earnings differential between lesbians and heterosexual women is very small. Our results are in line with results from previous research but are more reliable since we use a more reliable measure of sexual orientation than previous research.
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US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Psychological Adjustment of 17-Year-Old Adolescents
Nanette Gartrell & Henny Bos
Pediatrics, forthcoming
Objectives: The objective of this study was to document the psychological adjustment of adolescents who were conceived through donor insemination by lesbian mothers who enrolled before these offspring were born in the largest, longest running, prospective, longitudinal study of same-sex-parented families.
Methods: Between 1986 and 1992, 154 prospective lesbian mothers volunteered for a study that was designed to follow planned lesbian families from the index children's conception until they reached adulthood. Data for the current report were gathered through interviews and questionnaires that were completed by 78 index offspring when they were 10 and 17 years old and through interviews and Child Behavior Checklists that were completed by their mothers at corresponding times. The study is ongoing, with a 93% retention rate to date.
Results: According to their mothers' reports, the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their age-matched counterparts in Achenbach's normative sample of American youth. Within the lesbian family sample, no Child Behavior Checklist differences were found among adolescent offspring who were conceived by known, as-yet-unknown, and permanently unknown donors or between offspring whose mothers were still together and offspring whose mothers had separated.
Conclusions: Adolescents who have been reared in lesbian-mother families since birth demonstrate healthy psychological adjustment. These findings have implications for the clinical care of adolescents and for pediatricians who are consulted on matters that pertain to same-sex parenting.
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Amie Hess
Sex Education, August 2010, Pages 251-266
Abstract:
There are many assumptions made about the beliefs behind abstinence-only until marriage (AOUM) sex education, yet comparatively little research examining the views of abstinence education providers. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 21 abstinence grantees throughout New York State, I examine how individuals working in abstinence organizations conceive of AOUM education and understand their work in the broader spectrum of sex education efforts. I contrast these understandings with the national-level abstinence discourse, using data collected from two national, government-sponsored conferences for federal abstinence grantees. The comparative focus reveals a disjuncture between the national agenda and the varied understandings that local abstinence organizations bring to abstinence education. While the national movement frames abstinence using a discourse of scientific morality, local providers resist this framing. Local providers express ambivalence around AOUM education and manage contradictory feelings by discursively repurposing abstinence education in ways that better reflect the needs of their communities. This local level variation underscores the importance of contextualizing research on sex education.
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Evaluation of "Big Decisions": An Abstinence-Plus Sexuality Curriculum
Janet Realini, Ruth Buzi, Peggy Smith & Mario Martinez
Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, July 2010, Pages 313-326
Abstract:
This study examines the effectiveness of Big Decisions, a sexuality curriculum developed to promote abstinence, as well as condom and contraceptive use, while overcoming school districts' concern about controversy surrounding sex education. The authors used a pre- and post-test survey design to measure changes in attitudes, self-efficacy, and behavioral intentions regarding sex, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and condom use. The sample for this analysis included 788 inner-city 9th-grade students, the majority of which (78.4%) were Hispanic. Pre- to posttest data comparisons demonstrated improvement in mean scores for each item, with statistically significant changes for 11 of the 12 items measured. The male participants' pretest responses reflected higher risk status than did those of female participants. A large majority (87.8%) of students rated the program as "great" or "good". The results suggest that Big Decisions provides a promising approach to reaching minority students with both abstinence and risk-reduction messages.
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How Are Restrictive Abortion Statutes Associated With Unintended Teen Birth?
Mandy Coles, Kevin Makino, Nancy Stanwood, Ann Dozier & Jonathan Klein
Journal of Adolescent Health, August 2010, Pages 160-167
Purpose: Legislation that restricts abortion access decreases abortion. It is less well understood whether these statutes affect unintended birth. Given recent increases in teen pregnancy and birth, we examined the relationship between legislation that restricts abortion access and unintended births among adolescent women.
Methods: Using 2000-2005 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System data, we examined the relationship between adolescent pregnancy intention and policies affecting abortion access: mandatory waiting periods, parental involvement laws, and Medicaid funding restrictions. Logistic regression controlled for individual characteristics, state-level factors, geographic regions, and time trends. Subgroup analyses were done for racial, ethnic, and insurance groups.
Results: In our multivariate model, minors in states with mandatory waiting periods were more than two times as likely to report an unintended birth, with even higher risk among blacks, Hispanics, and teens receiving Medicaid. Medicaid funding restrictions were associated with higher rates of unwanted birth among black teens. Parental involvement laws were associated with a trend toward more unwanted births in white minors and fewer in Hispanic minors.
Conclusions: Mandatory waiting periods are associated with higher rates of unintended birth in teens, and funding restrictions may especially affect black adolescents. Policies limiting access to abortion appear to affect the outcomes of unintended teen pregnancy. Subsequent research should clarify the magnitude of such effects, and lead to policy changes that successfully reduce unintended teen births.
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Morality or equality? Ideological framing in news coverage of gay marriage legitimization
Po-Lin Pan & Juan Meng & Shuhua Zhou
Social Science Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
This content analytic study investigated the approaches of two mainstream newspapers-The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune-to cover the gay marriage issue. The study used the Massachusetts legitimization of gay marriage as a dividing point to look at what kinds of specific political or social topics related to gay marriage were highlighted in the news media. The study examined how news sources were framed in the coverage of gay marriage, based upon the newspapers' perspectives and ideologies. The results indicated that The New York Times was inclined to emphasize the topic of human equality related to the legitimization of gay marriage. After the legitimization, The New York Times became an activist for gay marriage. Alternatively, the Chicago Tribune highlighted the importance of human morality associated with the gay marriage debate. The perspective of the Chicago Tribune was not dramatically influenced by the legitimization. It reported on gay marriage in terms of defending American traditions and family values both before and after the gay marriage legitimization.
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Geoff MacFarlane, Simon Blomberg & Paul Vasey
Animal Behaviour, forthcoming
Abstract:
Homosexual behaviour occurs in over 130 species of birds, yet explaining its maintenance in evolutionary terms appears problematic at face value, as such sexual behaviours do not seem in immediate pursuit of reproductive goals. Parental care sexual conflict theory predicts that release from parental care translates to an increased propensity towards polygamous sexual behaviour. We hypothesized that homosexual behaviour(s) may be expected to increase in frequency for the sex that invests less in parental care and potentially enjoys increased mating opportunities. Consistent with our predictions, lower relative contribution to parental care for a particular sex is related to increased frequency of occurrence of homosexual behaviour. For males, highly polygynous species with minimal male parental investment exhibit higher frequencies of male homosexual behaviour, including male-male mounting and especially courtship. In socially monogamous species, male parental investment is greater, and the expression of male homosexual behaviour is lower. Similarly, among pair-bonding species, frequencies of male-male pair bonding increase with decreases in male contribution to care relative to females. When females of socially monogamous species provide less care than males, they exhibit higher frequencies of homosexual behaviour, namely pair bonding and courtship activities. Conversely, when females of polygynous species provide the bulk of parental care, female-female sexual behaviour is infrequently expressed. Homosexual behaviour in birds is more likely to occur under scenarios of enhanced mating opportunity without necessarily influencing reproductive success and thus may exist neutrally, or alternatively provide a behavioural template co-opted for adaptive design.