Wednesday, 23 October 2013
Double Standards And Changing Standards
In contemporary society it is widely believed that men are socially rewarded for sexual activity, whereas women are derogated for sexual activity. To determine whether a sexual double standard exists, both undergraduate (n = 144) and Internet (n = 8,080) participants evaluated experimental targets who were described as either male or female and as having a variable number of sexual partners. Targets were more likely to be derogated as the number of sexual partners increased, and this effect held for both male and female targets. These results suggest that, although people do evaluate others as a function of sexual activity, people do not necessarily hold men and women to different sexual standards.
[...]
The confirmation bias (Gilovich, 1993; Snyder, 1981), may also help to explain why people believe that the sexual double standard exists. Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking in which one tends to notice evidence that confirms one’s beliefs and to ignore or undervalue evidence that contradicts one’s beliefs. Confirmation biases may lead people to notice cases that are consistent with the double standard (e.g., a woman being referred to as a “slut”) and fail to notice cases inconsistent with the double standard (e.g., a man being referred to as a “whore”). Because the vast majority of people believe that a sexual double standard exists (Marks, 2002; Milhausen & Herold, 1999, 2001), it is likely that people will process social information that seemingly corroborates the sexual double standard and will ignore information that refutes it.
[...]
In short, although men and women may have an equal probability of being derogated (or rewarded) for having had many sexual partners, people may tend to notice only the instances in which women are derogated and men are rewarded. Attending to cases that are consistent with the double standard while ignoring cases inconsistent with it may create the illusion that the sexual double standard is more pervasive than it really is.
Marks, Michael J., and R. Chris Fraley. "The sexual double standard: Fact or fiction?." Sex Roles 52.3-4 (2005): 175-186.
--------
But what about when actual number of sexual partners are assessed? Are men actually having sex with large numbers of women whereas women are more selective? Alexander and Fisher (2003) recently examined gender differences in reported number of sexual partners more closely. To facilitate more truthful responses, they used a "bogus pipeline" technique, which falsely convinces participants that a sophisticated electronic apparatus can detect their true feelings. Thus, some participants were connected to a (nonfunctional) polygraph machine and informed that untruthful responses would be detected. As expected, participants who were not attached to the polygraph displayed typical gender differences — that is, men reported more sexual partners than women did.
The polygraph (bogus pipeline) condition, however, yieldedfar different results. When participants believed that their true sexual history could be revealed by the polygraph, gender differences in reported sexual partners disappeared.
Alexander, Michele G., and Terri D. Fisher. "Truth and consequences: Using the bogus pipeline to examine sex differences in self‐reported sexuality." Journal of sex research 40.1 (2003): 27-35.
--------
Remember this when some loudmouth at the bar declares that "patriarchy is universal, and always has been!" It’s not, and it hasn’t. But rather than feel threatened, we’d recommend that our male readers ponder this: Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy. Got that, fellas? If you’re unhappy at the amount of sexual opportunity in your life, don’t blame the women. Instead, make sure they have equal access to power, wealth, and status. Then watch what happens.
Ryan, Christopher, and Cacilda Jethá. Sex at dawn: The prehistoric origins of modern sexuality. HarperCollins, 2010.
--------
The same false teachers who try to dim the luster of conjugal faith and purity do not scruple to do away with the honorable and trusting obedience which the woman owes to the man. Many of them even go further and assert that such a subjection of one party to the other is unworthy of human dignity, that the rights of husband and wife are equal; wherefore, they boldly proclaim the emancipation of women has been or ought to be effected. This emancipation in their ideas must be threefold, in the ruling of the domestic society, in the administration of family affairs and in the rearing of the children. It must be social, economic, physiological: – physiological, that is to say, the woman is to be freed at her own good pleasure from the burdensome duties properly belonging to a wife as companion and mother (We have already said that this is not an emancipation but a crime); social, inasmuch as the wife being freed from the cares of children and family, should, to the neglect of these, be able to follow her own bent and devote herself to business and even public affairs; finally economic, whereby the woman even without the knowledge and against the wish of her husband may be at liberty to conduct and administer her own affairs, giving her attention chiefly to these rather than to children, husband and family.
This, however, is not the true emancipation of woman, nor that rational and exalted liberty which belongs to the noble office of a Christian woman and wife; it is rather the debasing of the womanly character and the dignity of motherhood, and indeed of the whole family, as a result of which the husband suffers the loss of his wife, the children of their mother, and the home and the whole family of an ever watchful guardian. More than this, this false liberty and unnatural equality with the husband is to the detriment of the woman herself, for if the woman descends from her truly regal throne to which she has been raised within the walls of the home by means of the Gospel, she will soon be reduced to the old state of slavery (if not in appearance, certainly in reality) and become as amongst the pagans the mere instrument of man.
– Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Visualizing The History Of Love
From: McCandless, David. The Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide to the World's Most Consequential Trivia. Collins Design, 2009.
Tuesday, 8 October 2013
Finance And Gender
There are sharp differences between male and female debt literacy levels. In each of the three questions, women were much less likely to respond correctly than were men, sometimes by as much as 20 percentage points. Furthermore, many women stated they did not know the answer to the literacy questions. Since our survey covers the entire age group, we also have investigated gender differences among those younger than 30 and those older than 65. We find that gender differences are significant among both the young and the old, confirming findings in other research about the low levels of literacy of women in younger and older generations (Lusardi and Mitchell, 2008; Lusardi, Mitchell, and Curto, 2008).
Lusardi, Annamaria, and Peter Tufano. Debt literacy, financial experiences, and overindebtedness. No. w14808. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009.
---------
Consonant with the received literature, we find that women exhibit less risk-taking than men in their most recent, largest, and riskiest mutual fund investment decisions. More importantly, we find that the impact of gender on risk taking is significantly weakened when investor knowledge of financial markets and investments is controlled in the regression equation. This result suggests that the greater level of risk aversion among women that is frequently documented in the literature can be substantially, but not completely, explained by knowledge disparities.
Dwyer, Peggy D., James H. Gilkeson, and John A. List. "Gender differences in revealed risk taking: evidence from mutual fund investors." Economics Letters 76.2 (2002): 151-158.
---------
Being younger and being a woman are also risk factors for compulsive buying. One consistent finding of past research is that age is negatively correlated with compulsive buying (e.g. D’Astous, 1990; Dittmar, 2005b). Furthermore, a number of studies have reported that rates of compulsive buying among women are significantly higher than those among men (e.g. Schlosser et al., 1994). Some explanations for this difference include women are more interested in clothing, beauty and adornment, and in socializing while shopping than men (Bloch, 1993; Kwon, 1997; Dittmar et al., 2004). However, Koran et al. (2006) reported similar compulsive buying rates among men and women. In younger samples, the gender difference for compulsive buying is reduced (Dittmar, 2005b).
Brougham, Ruby R., et al. "Who pays your debt? An important question for understanding compulsive buying among American college students." International Journal of Consumer Studies 35.1 (2011): 79-85.
---------
Data from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation’s National Financial Capability Study revealed that women were more likely to engage in costly credit card behaviors--like incurring late and over-the-limit fees--than men. After controlling for a number of demographic variables, including financial literacy and a self-assessment of mathematical ability, the gender-based differences in credit card behavior were eliminated. These findings suggest that credit card management differences between the sexes could be reduced if parity existed between men and women on important variables that women tend to trail men on, such as income and financial literacy.
Mottola, Gary R. "In Our Best Interest: Women, Financial Literacy, and Credit Card Behavior." Numeracy 6.2 (2013): 4.
---------
Findings illustrate the dynamics of male control of household expenditure and the acquisition of problematic debt. They also suggest that when men have sole responsibility for managing incomes constrained by over-indebtedness, they experience the anxiety and depression more typically reported by women; but ‘male pride’ in relation to financial matters that forms a significant component of their identities acts as a barrier to seeking advice.
Goode, Jackie. "Brothers are doing it for themselves?: Men's experiences of getting into and getting out of debt." The Journal of Socio-Economics 41.3 (2012): 327-335.
---------
Specifically, the findings suggest that gender is significantly related to perceived lifestyle outcomes of credit card usage (refer to Table 3), where males perceive that the use of credit cards provide access to mainstream society, while females perceive that the use of credit cards provide them with more financial confidence. However, the literature suggests that the influence of gender on credit card ownership and usage practices are mixed. For instance, Adcock et al. (1977) found gender as a significant predictor of credit card ownership and use, where males are more likely to use credit cards than females, although Adcock et al. (1977) do not describe the reasons behind this increased usage. However, some recent studies found that there are no significant differences between males and females in the determination of the benefits sought from credit cards, the ownership of credit cards, the practices of paying interest, making minimum payments and the feeling that they had on good management of finances (e.g. Kaynak and Harcar, 2001).
Wickramasinghe, Vathsala, and Anurudh Gurugamage. "Effects of social demographic attributes, knowledge about credit cards and perceived lifestyle outcomes on credit card usage." International Journal of Consumer Studies 36.1 (2012): 80-89.
---------
Further reading:
Eisenhauer, Joseph G. "Estimating prudence." Eastern Economic Journal 26.4 (2000): 379-392.
Dittmar, Helga. "A new look at “compulsive buying”: Self–discrepancies and materialistic values as predictors of compulsive buying tendency." Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 24.6 (2005): 832-859.
Lusardi, Annamaria, and Peter Tufano. Debt literacy, financial experiences, and overindebtedness. No. w14808. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009.
---------
Consonant with the received literature, we find that women exhibit less risk-taking than men in their most recent, largest, and riskiest mutual fund investment decisions. More importantly, we find that the impact of gender on risk taking is significantly weakened when investor knowledge of financial markets and investments is controlled in the regression equation. This result suggests that the greater level of risk aversion among women that is frequently documented in the literature can be substantially, but not completely, explained by knowledge disparities.
Dwyer, Peggy D., James H. Gilkeson, and John A. List. "Gender differences in revealed risk taking: evidence from mutual fund investors." Economics Letters 76.2 (2002): 151-158.
---------
Being younger and being a woman are also risk factors for compulsive buying. One consistent finding of past research is that age is negatively correlated with compulsive buying (e.g. D’Astous, 1990; Dittmar, 2005b). Furthermore, a number of studies have reported that rates of compulsive buying among women are significantly higher than those among men (e.g. Schlosser et al., 1994). Some explanations for this difference include women are more interested in clothing, beauty and adornment, and in socializing while shopping than men (Bloch, 1993; Kwon, 1997; Dittmar et al., 2004). However, Koran et al. (2006) reported similar compulsive buying rates among men and women. In younger samples, the gender difference for compulsive buying is reduced (Dittmar, 2005b).
Brougham, Ruby R., et al. "Who pays your debt? An important question for understanding compulsive buying among American college students." International Journal of Consumer Studies 35.1 (2011): 79-85.
---------
Data from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation’s National Financial Capability Study revealed that women were more likely to engage in costly credit card behaviors--like incurring late and over-the-limit fees--than men. After controlling for a number of demographic variables, including financial literacy and a self-assessment of mathematical ability, the gender-based differences in credit card behavior were eliminated. These findings suggest that credit card management differences between the sexes could be reduced if parity existed between men and women on important variables that women tend to trail men on, such as income and financial literacy.
Mottola, Gary R. "In Our Best Interest: Women, Financial Literacy, and Credit Card Behavior." Numeracy 6.2 (2013): 4.
---------
Findings illustrate the dynamics of male control of household expenditure and the acquisition of problematic debt. They also suggest that when men have sole responsibility for managing incomes constrained by over-indebtedness, they experience the anxiety and depression more typically reported by women; but ‘male pride’ in relation to financial matters that forms a significant component of their identities acts as a barrier to seeking advice.
Goode, Jackie. "Brothers are doing it for themselves?: Men's experiences of getting into and getting out of debt." The Journal of Socio-Economics 41.3 (2012): 327-335.
---------
Specifically, the findings suggest that gender is significantly related to perceived lifestyle outcomes of credit card usage (refer to Table 3), where males perceive that the use of credit cards provide access to mainstream society, while females perceive that the use of credit cards provide them with more financial confidence. However, the literature suggests that the influence of gender on credit card ownership and usage practices are mixed. For instance, Adcock et al. (1977) found gender as a significant predictor of credit card ownership and use, where males are more likely to use credit cards than females, although Adcock et al. (1977) do not describe the reasons behind this increased usage. However, some recent studies found that there are no significant differences between males and females in the determination of the benefits sought from credit cards, the ownership of credit cards, the practices of paying interest, making minimum payments and the feeling that they had on good management of finances (e.g. Kaynak and Harcar, 2001).
Wickramasinghe, Vathsala, and Anurudh Gurugamage. "Effects of social demographic attributes, knowledge about credit cards and perceived lifestyle outcomes on credit card usage." International Journal of Consumer Studies 36.1 (2012): 80-89.
---------
Further reading:
Eisenhauer, Joseph G. "Estimating prudence." Eastern Economic Journal 26.4 (2000): 379-392.
Dittmar, Helga. "A new look at “compulsive buying”: Self–discrepancies and materialistic values as predictors of compulsive buying tendency." Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 24.6 (2005): 832-859.
Thursday, 3 October 2013
"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible" – Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible” – Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
From: Lec, Stanisław Jerzy. More unkempt thoughts. Funk & Wagnalls, 1969.
Testosterone And Attraction
Preferences for masculinity were strongest when women’s testosterone levels were relatively high. Our findings complement those from previous studies that show systematic variation in masculinity preferences during the menstrual cycle and suggest that change in testosterone level may play an important role in cyclic shifts in women’s preferences for masculine traits.
Welling, L. L. M., et al. “Raised salivary testosterone in women is associated with increased attraction to masculine faces.” Hormones and Behavior 52.2 (2007): 156-161.
–
Men reported stronger attraction to femininity in women’s faces in test sessions where salivary testosterone was high than in test sessions where salivary testosterone was low. This effect was found to be specific to judgments of opposite-sex faces. The strength of men’s reported attraction to femininity in men’s faces did not differ between high and low testosterone test sessions, suggesting that the effect of testosterone that we observed for judgments of women’s faces was not due to a general response bias.
Welling, Lisa LM, et al. “Men report stronger attraction to femininity in women’s faces when their testosterone levels are high.” Hormones and Behavior 54.5 (2008): 703-708.
–
Furthermore, men’s actual and perceived affinity for children predicted women’s long-term mate attractiveness judgments, while men’s testosterone and perceived masculinity predicted women’s short-term mate attractiveness judgments. These results suggest that women can detect facial cues of men’s hormone concentrations and affinity for children, and that women use perception of these cues to form mate attractiveness judgments.
Roney, James R., et al. “Reading men’s faces: women’s mate attractiveness judgments track men’s testosterone and interest in infants.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273.1598 (2006): 2169-2175.
–
Testosterone is thought to mediate a trade-off between paternal effort and mating effort, such that males investing monogamously have lower testosterone than those with multiple partners. This suggests that high-testosterone males may have a reproductive advantage over their low-testosterone counterparts via increased mating success. We tested 119 adult males to assess whether testosterone is associated with mating success, and rated masculinity and attractiveness. We found a significant positive correlation between testosterone and cumulative mating success. There was, however, no correlation between testosterone and rated masculinity or attractiveness. This study indicates that, although current levels of testosterone covary with male mating success, this effect may not be mediated by women’s preferences for visual cues to testosterone levels conveyed in static face or body features. If the testosterone–mating success link is driven by female choice, this effect may be behaviourally modulated, for example, through the augmentation of male mate seeking or courtship effort.
Peters, Marianne, Leigh W. Simmons, and Gillian Rhodes. “Testosterone is associated with mating success but not attractiveness or masculinity in human males.” Animal Behaviour 76.2 (2008): 297-303.
Welling, L. L. M., et al. “Raised salivary testosterone in women is associated with increased attraction to masculine faces.” Hormones and Behavior 52.2 (2007): 156-161.
–
Men reported stronger attraction to femininity in women’s faces in test sessions where salivary testosterone was high than in test sessions where salivary testosterone was low. This effect was found to be specific to judgments of opposite-sex faces. The strength of men’s reported attraction to femininity in men’s faces did not differ between high and low testosterone test sessions, suggesting that the effect of testosterone that we observed for judgments of women’s faces was not due to a general response bias.
Welling, Lisa LM, et al. “Men report stronger attraction to femininity in women’s faces when their testosterone levels are high.” Hormones and Behavior 54.5 (2008): 703-708.
–
Furthermore, men’s actual and perceived affinity for children predicted women’s long-term mate attractiveness judgments, while men’s testosterone and perceived masculinity predicted women’s short-term mate attractiveness judgments. These results suggest that women can detect facial cues of men’s hormone concentrations and affinity for children, and that women use perception of these cues to form mate attractiveness judgments.
Roney, James R., et al. “Reading men’s faces: women’s mate attractiveness judgments track men’s testosterone and interest in infants.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273.1598 (2006): 2169-2175.
–
Testosterone is thought to mediate a trade-off between paternal effort and mating effort, such that males investing monogamously have lower testosterone than those with multiple partners. This suggests that high-testosterone males may have a reproductive advantage over their low-testosterone counterparts via increased mating success. We tested 119 adult males to assess whether testosterone is associated with mating success, and rated masculinity and attractiveness. We found a significant positive correlation between testosterone and cumulative mating success. There was, however, no correlation between testosterone and rated masculinity or attractiveness. This study indicates that, although current levels of testosterone covary with male mating success, this effect may not be mediated by women’s preferences for visual cues to testosterone levels conveyed in static face or body features. If the testosterone–mating success link is driven by female choice, this effect may be behaviourally modulated, for example, through the augmentation of male mate seeking or courtship effort.
Peters, Marianne, Leigh W. Simmons, and Gillian Rhodes. “Testosterone is associated with mating success but not attractiveness or masculinity in human males.” Animal Behaviour 76.2 (2008): 297-303.
19th Century Purity Campaigns
Horrified by the moral and gendered implications of the proposed scheme to regulate prostitution, a loosely connected network of clergy and activists with longstanding ties to a range of reform causes—including women’s rights, abolitionism, and moral education—joined together under the leadership of the newly created New York Committee for the Prevention of State Regulation of Vice, hereinafter the New York Committee, to protest what they viewed as the incorporation of evil into law
[...]
Drawing upon the interrelated motifs of the destructive power of unconstrained male lust and the devastating consequences of female ruin, purity reformers advanced two primary arguments to support their demand that states raise the age of sexual consent to eighteen or twenty-one. First, emphasizing the vulnerability of young women in the years following the onset of puberty, they argued that the state had a duty to protect them from predatory men who sought to take advantage of their youthful innocence. Second, reflecting their view that the loss of virginity outside of marriage was the greatest disaster that could befall any woman, they also argued that the state should strengthen existing moral constraints on illicit conduct by making it legally impossible for young women to consent to sexual activity. As developed below, in turning to the state, the purity reformers both challenged male sexual privilege, with its implied right of access to the adolescent female body, and sought to write the sacred value of female virginity into law.
Ehrlich, J. Shoshanna. “You Can Steal Her Virginity but Not Her Doll: The Nineteenth Century Campaign to Raise the Legal Age of Sexual Consent.” Cardozo JL & Gender 15 (2008): 229.
Genetic Mediation of Divorce Risk
The concern with regards to divorce risk is that it is genetically mediated. For example, people who are impulsive are more likely to divorce, and impulsivity is heritable (along with many other things: http://ussc.edu.au/ussc/assets/media/docs/publications/44_Hatemi_Trends.pdf#page=29).
—
A number of studies have demonstrated associations between sensation seeking traits and measures of impulsivity. This study examined genetic contributions to the observed correlations between impulsivity and sensation seeking traits. Fifty-seven pairs of identical and 49 pairs of fraternal twins who were reared apart and 90 individuals who also participated in the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart completed the Control scale of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen, 1982) and the four subscales of the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS; Zuckerman, 1979), Consistent with previous studies, the Control scale was significantly correlated with the SSS. A Cholesky decomposition of the data indicated that the phenotypic correlations between the Control scale and the four subscales of the SSS were mediated almost entirely by genetic factors. In the final reduced model the proportion of the genetic variance of the Control scale in common with the SSS was estimated as 55%, and the rest of the genetic variance (45%) was attributed to the genetic variance specific to the Control scale. The results emphasize the importance of common biological mechanisms underlying associations between impulsivity and sensation seeking traits.
Hur, Yoon-Mi, and Thomas J. Bouchard Jr. “The genetic correlation between impulsivity and sensation seeking traits.” Behavior Genetics 27.5 (1997): 455-463.
—
M. McGue and D. T. Lykken (1992) found that divorce risk was, to a substantial degree, genetically mediated; prior research has identified numerous social and psychological factors that affect divorce risk (G. C. Kitson, K. B. Barbi, & M. J. Roach, 1985). The present study attempted to link these domains by examining the extent to which genetic influences on one such psychological factor, personality, explain divorce risk heritability. A sample of adult twins from the Minnesota Twin Registry completed a marital history questionnaire and the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (A. Tellegen, 1982). Positive Emotionality and Negative Emotionality factors were positively related to divorce risk, whereas Constraint was negatively related. In women and men, respectively, 30% and 42% of the heritability of divorce risk consisted of genetic factors affecting personality, and personality and divorce risk correlated largely as a result of these common genetic influences.
Jocklin, Victor, Matt McGue, and David T. Lykken. “Personality and divorce: a genetic analysis.” Journal of personality and social psychology 71.2 (1996): 288.
—
Recent research on the interplay of genetic and social factors in psychological development has several strands. First, genetic influences are important in the development of both competent and pathological behaviors (see review, Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, & Rutter, 1997a). Second, research is now focused on explaining these genetic influences. Figure 1 shows a simplified version of a model of reciprocal environmental and genetic influences (Kendler & Eaves, 1986; Plomin, DeFries, & Loehlin, 1977; Scarr & McCartney, 1983) that fits current data. Because the reciprocating process are evoked initially by an individual’s genotype this has been called the Evocative Model (Reiss, Neiderhiser, Hetherington, & Plomin, 2000). In Figure 1, “attributes” are heritable features of an individual’s reactivity, self-regulation, and cognitive skills. These appear earlier in development but do not necessarily affect overall adjustment. However, according to this model, heritable attributes evoke distinctive patterns of responses from intimates such as parents, children, sibs, and spouses. It is these evoked social responses that intensify and transform heritable traits into the profiles of heritable strengths and weaknesses that shape the individual’s adjustment.
[...]
Recent findings support this model. For example, step 2 suggests that differences in genotype among individuals would be associated with differences in the patterns of responses to them by their family and friends. Indeed, genetic differences among children and adults show substantial associations with the quality of their intimate relationships. These include, for children, the quality of their relationship with their parents as measured by self-report (Plomin, Reiss, Hetherington, & Howe, 1994) and by coded videotape (Dunn & Plomin, 1986; O’Connor, Hetherington, Reiss, & Plomin, 1995); their sibling relationships (Pike, McGuire, Hetherington, et al., 1996; Reiss et al., 2000; Rende, Slomkowski, Stocker, et al., 1992); and their peer and friendship relationships (Manke, McGuire, Reiss, et al., 1995). For adults these include their parental behaviors (see below) and their liability for divorce (McGue & Lykken, 1992).
Reiss, David, et al. “Genetic Probes of Three Theories of Maternal Adjustment: I. Recent Evidence and a Model*.” Family Process 40.3 (2001): 247-259.
—
—
From Turkheimer himself:
Turkheimer, Eric. “Heritability and biological explanation.” Psychological Review 105.4 (1998): 782.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)