Sex differences (Psychology)

The Problem. The purpose of this study was to determine whether significant differences existed between the perceptions held by male and female graduate students in educational leadership toward the influences that role models, mentors, and network systems exert on educational career development. The subjects consisted of graduate students enrolled at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, during the 1985-86 academic year who were either seeking a graduate degree in educational leadership or seeking Florida State Certification in educational leadership. Procedure. A multivariate analysis of variance procedure was applied to test the hypotheses of the study to determine whether significant differences existed between the perceptions held by male and female graduate students in educational leadership on role models, mentors, and network systems of the group level. Where a significant multivariate difference was detected, a univariate analysis of variance was completed for each of the forty-five variables to detemine whether significant differences existed between the perceptions held by male and female graduate students in educational leadership at the item level. Conclusions. (1) Male and female graduate students in educational leadership exhibited significant differences in their perceptions toward role models on educational career development; (2) Male and female graduate students in educational leadership exhibited significant differences in their perceptions toward mentors in educational career development; (3) Male and female graduate students in educational leadership exhibited no significant differences in their perceptions toward network systems on educational career development.

This thesis examined relations of multiple dimensions of gender identity same gender typicality, other-gender typicality, gender contentedness, gender oppression, felt pressure to conform, and gender centrality) to children's adjustment (global self-worth, narcissism, depression, internalizing behaviors, externalizing behaviors, and prosocial behaviors. Participants were 237 fourth through eighth graders (108 males, 129 females; M[underscore] age = 11 years, 4 months). Each measure of gender identity related to children's adjustment in a unique way. Findings also showed gender centrality to moderate relations of other gender identity variables to adjustment, suggesting that how central gender is to a child influences the impact of other gender self-appraisals on the child's development and adjustment.

This study examined how narcissism affects preadolescent children's choices of peer targets for aggression. Based on the idea that narcissists have a grandiose sense of self that requires nourishment, we hypothesized that narcissistic children are especially likely to attack peers who threaten, or fail to nourish, their grandiose self. We assessed narcissism and the degree to which each child's aggression toward peers depended on (a) the child's perceived liking by each peer, (b) the child's liking of each peer, (c) each peer's actual liking of the child, and (d) the child's perceived similarity to each peer. Participants were 197 children in the fourth through eighth grades at a university school. Narcissism predicted the four types of target-specific aggression in disparate ways for boys and girls. Narcissistic boys were especially likely to direct aggression toward male peers whom (a) they perceived as disliking them, (b) they disliked, and (c) they perceived as dissimilar to themselves. Narcissistic girls were especially likely to attack female peers whom they perceived as similar to themselves. Narcissism may enhance different motives for boys and girls in same-sex peer relatinships. We propose that narcissism enhances investment in status and rivalry amoung girls while enhancing the motive to attack dissimilar peers among boys.

The fact that 45% of boys and 32% of girls in the United States participate in youth sports suggests that sports participation might be an important influence on children's psychosocial development. This study explored: (1) how children's gender cognitions influence sports self-efficacy and (2) how sports self-efficacy influences children's psychosocial adjustment. Results suggest that for boys, felt pressure to conform to gender standards and the belief that sports is important for boys influence sports self-efficacy. In girls, both the belief that sports is important for girls and the belief that sports is important for boys predicted sports self-efficacy. Sports self-efficacy predicted benefits for girls adjustment (high self-esteem, higher body satisfaction, lower depression and lower anxiety) but both positive and negative outcomes for boys (higher narcissism, higher aggression, and lower depression and lower anxiety). The findings overall suggest that the correlates of sports self-efficacy are somewhat different for boys and for girls.

Women have recurrently faced the adaptive problem of rape over evolutionary history. Little research has investigated the potential evolved psychological mechanisms for rape avoidance that women may possess. Here I review evolutionary perspectives on rape avoidance. I follow this review with the results of two studies conducted to design a measure of women's rape avoidance, known as the Rape Avoidance Inventory (RAI). Study 1A included 99 women who self-reported acts they do or might do specifically to avoid being raped. Study 1B included 144 women who filled out a preliminary inventory of rape avoidance behaviors. I used their responses to construct the RAI. In Study 3, I develop and test a number of hypotheses derived from evolutionary psychological theory, using data derived from the sample of women in Study 1B. I conclude by discussing limitations and possible future directions for rape avoidance research.

The levels of 3 dimensions of sexism and 13 measures of psychosocial adjustment were assessed in 236 children in grades 4 through 8. The adjustment measures were factor analyzed to produce 5 adjustment factors. Analysis revealed that one of the factors, peer-reported prosocial tendencies, was moderately and negatively correlated with two of three measures of sexism. This effect was more pronounced for girls than for boys. Another factor, body self-esteem, was negatively correlated with one of the measures of sexism for girls. The findings are congruent with the view that traditionally sexist ideology may detrimentally impact children's psychosocial adjustment.

The rise in popularity of the female sleuth television programs makes it important to explore representations of gender and knowledge. This investigation analyzes interpretations of intuition in the television sleuth genre and relevant paratexts, examines gendered public and private spheres and raises broader questions about gendered knowledge in the series Medium, Crossing Jordan, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Veronica Mars, Monk, The Profiler and True Calling. Rooted in feminist cultural studies, historical and sociological analysis, television and film theory and work on the detective genre, this investigation establishes common frames, or filters, through which the television sleuth genre represents intuition and the gendered experience of knowledge. Women with intuition are depicted as unstable, dangerous and mentally ill. Though framed similarly, intuitive men have more freedom. This study expands on academic research on television representations of gender and knowledge. Societal implications include further understanding of meaning-making in regard to gendered knowing.

This project focuses on, Behind the Green Door, a film that inaugurated and in many ways defined the genre of hard-core pornography. I will examine the subversive modes of sexual behavior created and promoted by society and will argue that pornographic films actively attempt to redefine socially created notions of sexual comportment. I will then examine the notion of sexual fantasy and behavior as represented in two pornographic films, The Masseuse and The Fashionistas, in relation to the models of sexual comportment present in Behind the Green Door. Specifically, I will study the work of two female pornographic stars, Jenna Jameson and Belladonna, and discuss the manner in which their work has reclaimed the notion of femininity and the necessity for female sexual pleasure by presenting women as sexually empowered beings able controlling and creating sexual scenarios specifically designed to garner physical pleasure.