Degree Discipline

Sexual orientation self-label, behavior, and preference: College students in Taiwan and the USA (open access)

Sexual orientation self-label, behavior, and preference: College students in Taiwan and the USA

The relationships among self-labeled sexual orientation, sexual preferences, and sexual behaviors were examined in samples from Taiwan and the USA. Subsamples matched on gender, age, and marital status were created to reduce sexual orientation cell size discrepancies and demographic differences. Sexual orientation self-label, the Kinsey Scale of Sexual Orientation, and a modified version for preference were used to assess participants' sexual orientation, behavior, and preference, respectively. Additional measures included an adaptation of the Early Sexual Experiences Checklist, and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist for psychological distress. For both Taiwan and USA subsamples, heterosexual participants reported significantly greater congruence between sexual orientation identity and preference than did nonheterosexual participants. A high proportion of the Taiwan sample were celibate, precluding analyses of congruence between sexual orientation identity and sexual behavior. Congruence between sexual behavior and preference in the USA sample was negatively correlated with psychological distress. In a cross-cultural comparison between the Taiwan and USA women (n = 176), the two samples reported similar congruence between sexual orientation identity and preference. Exploratory analyses revealed that heterosexual participants' sexual orientation label was more “public, ” (more categories of people who knew the participants' sexual orientation), than was nonheterosexuals' in both Taiwan and the USA. …
Date: August 2002
Creator: Roberts, Mary Kathryn
System: The UNT Digital Library
Social Attitudes toward Men and Women with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (open access)

Social Attitudes toward Men and Women with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Although men are more likely to experience traumatic events, the risk of developing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is at least twice as high in women than in men after exposure to comparable traumas. These findings are more consistent in response to some types of trauma (e.g., assaultive violence) than others (e.g., natural disaster). There has been very little systematic study of the sources of these gender differences. This study began to explore the contribution of gender-related beliefs about appropriate responses to trauma by investigating the impact of victim sex and trauma type as well as participant sex, sex-role orientation, and personal trauma history on attitudes towards victims. Ninety-three male and 179 female students were administered the Bem Sex Role Inventory, the Trauma History Questionnaire, and a vignette measure of attitudes towards victims. Participants evaluated male victims significantly less favorably than female victims, and females had more positive attitudes towards victims than males. Feminine sex-typed and androgynous women rated victims more favorably than masculine sex-typed men and women. The interaction between sex of victim and trauma type was not significant. A positive relation was observed between personal trauma exposure and attitudes towards male victims among male participants only. These findings contribute towards …
Date: August 2002
Creator: Mendelsohn, Michaela
System: The UNT Digital Library