sexual double standards.

            In the article I chose this week, researchers looked at the sexual double standard from a cognitive approach. Their theory was that when the double standard is researched by other methods they are planting a seed by only having participants focus on sexual behavior. According to this article, in the real world people pay less attention to sexual behavior and make judgments without knowing sexual behavior because they are able to judge on other factors regarding there lifestyle, and don't just judge them over sexual behaviors. The article states “Busy environments constrain the attentional resources available for processing social information making person evaluation more difficult.”

               The theory they later test is that when a study focuses on sexual behavior people will only pay attention to sexual behavior, but when other factors are involved it becomes much less important. They test this by putting participants into different situations, one where their attention is divided among other things, and one where their attention is only on sexual behavior. They created several vignettes making sure no mention of gender and sexual activity was made. Participants only knew that they were evaluating people in these vignettes. The researcher found that when attention is divided genders were rated equally as far as sexual activity, but when all attention is put on sexual activity women were rated more negatively than men were.
               This information is important because this suggests that perhaps the sexual double standard does not exist in the real world, but when tested to see if the double standard exists participants begin to notice it more often. The article calls it a cognitive short cut and that making judgments is a method of cognition that people use to better understand people quickly.
          One media example of this would be The Scarlet Letter. The main character in the novel is quickly judged because everyone is paying attention to her sexuality (this may be due to the large A on her clothing dubbing her an adulteress) while the man she had intercourse with was not judged because his sexuality was not widely known.

Marks, Michael J. "Evaluations of Sexually Active Men and Women Under Divided Attention: A Social Cognitive Approach to the Sexual Double Standard." Taylor and Francis Online. Psychology Press. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973530701866664#preview>.

Conformation Bias

Today I found an article all about conformation bias and how it affects the sexual double standard. This was an interesting perspective because it asks the question which came first. The article talks about how people treat the double standard differently when they were aware of the double standard. They will recognize instances in which the double standard existed. Conformation bias is the idea that people have a tendency to recall information that confirms an idea. Examples of this would be If An employer who thinks that an employer is highly intelligent may spend more time to only information that is consistent with the belief that the employer is very smart. An example that apply to the sexual double standard that they describe in this article would be when someone is aware of the double standard, they will recognize instances in which the double standard existed instead of instances where there was no double standard at all.
According to the article, people generally don't evaluate sexual activity in men and women differently, however (Marks, 19) at the same time 93% of women in one study said that they feel that women are judged more harshly than men. This is where conformation bias comes into play, The theory is that people fail to encode or undervalue information that goes against the sexual double standard. (Marks, 20) To test this theory, they created a one paragraph fictional journal entry telling of one persons sexual history. They were randomly assigned whether the person was a male or a female. They then had to rate how many positive and negative comments were made about the characters sexual behavior. This study showed that there was actually no interaction between gender, men were rated the same as women. (Marks, 22)

In the second study, participants were told to write out all the comments made about the characters sexual behavior, both positive or negative. Results showed that negative comments made about the female target more often. These results show that perhaps the double standard only exists because people perceive that it does exist. If we take into consideration the fact that more times than not, there is no double standard we may be one step closer to making this an invalid stereotype. (Marks, 22)

Below is a really good video that gives a better example of what conformation bias is, as well as a graph that can show exactly what the sexual double standard is. As you can see, men are praised for being sexually active while for women, it is the opposite.

Marks, Michael J. "Confirmation Bias and the Sexual Double Standard." Sex Roles Vol. 54(2006): 19-26. SpringerLink. Web. 1 Nov. 2011. <http://www.springerlink.com/content/f448v1hm5320m738/>.

Evelutionary Approach to Indirect Victimization

Today I found a very interesting article talking about victimization and its effects on romantic partners. This article took an evolutionary perspective on whether or not indirect aggression (rumor spreading, harassment, etc.) had any effect on competition for romantic partners. According to the article, indirect victimization  is prominently seen in females, and that indirect victimization is more hurtful and distressing for girls than it is for boys (Leenaars, L. 2008). why is this? The article states that boys resort to physical violence  because they want to seem more dominant,( (Leenaars, L. 2008) where are for girls it can effect there social status and romantic status to seem aggressive. Another key reason that women attack other women according to an evolutionary approach, is that women are more selective when choosing a mate in order to protect the outcome of future offspring. Indirect victimization is seen as a tool make ones self look more appealing to partners and eliminating competition. Therefor, women who have had successful past relationships, women who are seen as attractive, and women who have a history of promiscuity, are more likely to be victimized because they are seen as a threat (Leenaars, L. 2008).
           The study that went with this article wanted to see if there was a correlation from how attractive someone felt/how many partners they have had and how often they have been victimized  (Leenaars, L. 2008). They study picked 2319 participants who were in their adolescents for this study. they measured everything with a series of Likert scales. The date showed that victimization was more prominent between women, and that women who were considered attractive, had more sexual partners, and date frequently were more likely to be victims (Leenaars, L. 2008).
            This study explains one of the reasons that might contribute to women being punished for their sexual behavior while men are not. this such victimization can be seen in the media in some movies such as "Mean Girls" a movie showing the horrors of being an adolescent female. In the movie often the main character is victimized by the one of the meaner girls Regina. In one scene she is seen telling a boy who likes the main charecter lies about her in order to get him herself.






Leenaars, Lindsey S., Andrew V. Dane, and Zopito A. Marini. "Evolutionary Perspective on Indirect Victimization in Adolescence: the Role of Attractiveness, Dating and Sexual Behavior - Leenaars - 2008 - Aggressive Behavior." Wiley Online Library. Wiley-Liss, 2008. Web. 21 Oct. 2011. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ab.20252/abstract>.

The Dynamics Of Sexual fidelity

Today i stumbled upon a really interesting article talking about sexuality and personality types between the two gender. The article takes a look at gender and promiscuity and gives some very interesting statistics about boys and girls with sexual relationships.
According to the article, men are more likely to cheat on partners, engage in infidelity with multiple partners,and engage in "sexual only" relationships. Women on the other hand were more likely to become emotionally involved with their affair partners. Men are more motivated by the desire for sexual variety and tend to pursue casual extrapair sex more than women.
what does this tell us? It certainly reinforces the stereotype that i have been researching, however the interesting part is the reasoning behind why men and women do this. according to the author, individuals who are highly narcissistic are more likely to cheat, and that men are more likely to be narcissistic.
They also put a lot of emphasis on biology. according to this article, heritable postnatal hormones factor in to their sex lives. According to the article, men who cheat on their wives tend to have higher levels of testosterone than men with lower levels of testosterone.
although i have yet to determine why this stereotype is the way it is, this article shows that boys tend to be more promisuis than women do for either biological reasons or personality traits.

men vs women promiscuity

            The stereotype I have chosen to research is the idea that a woman who is considered promiscuous is often seen wrong and shameful, whereas males who are considered promiscuous suffer no harm to their reputation.  In American culture, these ideas of women are “sluts” and men are “studs” has become a norm in modern day society, and dates back centuries.

First, it is important to put a proper definition to the word promiscuous. Webster dictionary online defines promiscuity as “not restricted to one class, sort, or person.” In context to what I am and will be discussing, promiscuity is the act of not being restricted to one sexual partner.  This topic interested me because there is so much history behind this topic. If someone were to take a look back into previous generations, they would surely see that it is common reoccurring theme for women to be damned for their sexual activity, while as it is rarer to hear the same about men.  

One example of this stereotype would be Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, where a women is forced to wear the letter A on her chest in order to humiliate her for having a bastard child. Another more modern portrayal of this and based off of Hawthorne's novel, in the 2010 film Easy A, where a young high school girl begins to pretend to have sexual encounters with different men so that the men can seem to be more of a ladies man, but at the sacrifice of her own reputation It is unclear at the moment, why exactly this double standard exists; however I am excited to find out why.