Netflix has made ten of their documentaries available on their YouTube channel. For many years, Netflix has allowed teachers to screen documentaries in their classrooms. However, this isn’t possible with schools closed. So at their request, we have made a selection of our documentary features and series available on the Netflix US YouTube channel.  Of particular interest to psychology instructors is the 5-episode documentary Babies. The episodes average 50 minutes in length. Netflix provides you with a few discussion questions for each episode. Even if you don’t use them, they’ll give you a better sense of what the episodes cover. Love Video Link : 2619 Crawling Video Link : 2620 First Words Video Link : 2621 Sleep Video Link : 2622 First steps Video Link : 2623 Another documentary of interest, Period. End of Sentence (27 mins) opens with a young woman talking about having to drop out of school because she didn’t have access to menstrual products. When the local women start manufacturing pads, it becomes an important source of income, and, presumably, a source of independence, both for the women who are earning money and the women who are using the pads. After covering adolescence, this documentary could be an interesting discussion starter for what most of your students probably take for granted. If you’d like, you can expand discussion on whether menstrual products should be taxed or should be provided by schools.   Video Link : 2624 Knock Down the House (87 mins) follows four women who ran campaigns against incumbents in the 2018 mid-term elections. There may be some good content here for social psychology or political psychology. Video Link : 2625 Take a look at the titles and descriptions of the other documentaries Netflix has made available via YouTube. Be aware that the links on that page go to Netflix, not their YouTube channel.  ... View more

A couple years ago, I wrote a blog post about how to use The Gender Unicorn to help students understand the differences between gender identity, gender expression, sex assigned at birth, physical attraction, and emotional attraction. Through this activity, students can begin to grasp the complexity of sex, gender, and attraction. Matt Goldenberg, through the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Facebook group, posted this 4-minute video that provides a nice introduction to a deeper discussion and The Gender Unicorn. (The recording is audio-described for the visually impaired and captioned for the hearing impaired.) Before showing the video, ask students to work in pairs or small groups to describe the ways in which people express their gender. In other words, when you see someone, how do you know what gender, if any, that person identifies with? Or, how do parents show the gender of their infants? Ask students to volunteer what they came up with; record these where students can see them. Video Link : 2397 If you have time, ask students to consider how the concept of gender differs across cultures. This article from Independent Lens includes a map of places around the world that look at gender differently than people do in the West. Click on each pin to learn more. After watching the recording and discussing gender across cultures, launch The Gender Unicorn activity.   A quick note about terminology. The prefix “cis” is Latin for “on the same side of;” and “trans” is Latin for “on the other side of.” For those who identify as cisgender, the gender they were assigned at birth and the gender they identify with now are in agreement—they’re on the same side. For those who identify as transgender, the gender they were assigned at birth and the gender they identify with now are in disagreement—they’re on different sides. This language is misleading because there really aren’t any sides. Those who identify as non-binary are saying that they don’t identify themselves according to a side. ... View more

Do you cover transgender and sexual orientation issues in your psychology courses? Before or after your coverage, ask students where incarcerated transgender people should be housed. Should they be housed based on the appearance of their physical body or based on their outward gendered appearance? In other words, if someone was born male, identifies and dresses as female, is convicted of a crime, and sentenced to time in prison, should the person be sent to a women’s prison or to a men’s prison? States determine where an inmate should be housed based on genitalia (Routh et al., 2017). That means that transgender women who have not had sex reassignment surgery are housed in men’s prisons. Have students listen to the 35-minute Episode 18 of the Ear Hustle podcast , broadcasting from San Quentin State Prison. (There is a little salty language and a lot of frank discussion; the LGBT part of the episode runs about 27 minutes.) Questions for students to consider as they listen to the podcast. After listening, students can discuss their responses in an online class discussion board, in small groups during class, or as an entire class: How many out gay men are there at San Quentin? What reasons do the prisoners give for that number? How many transgender women are there at San Quentin? Who is Lady J? Write a short biography for Lady J. What is your reaction to Lady J’s story? How have attitudes toward transgender women in prison changed since the 1980s?   Who is Mike? Write a short biography for Mike. What is your reaction to Mike’s story? Compare attitudes toward transgender women and gay men in your community with the attitudes in San Quentin. What is your reaction to this podcast episode? As of 2015, nine U.S. states provided sex reassignment surgery for state prisoners, including California. Most states provide counseling, some states will start hormone treatments whereas others will only maintain hormone treatment if the inmate has started prior to incarceration (Routh et al., 2017). Investigate what policies are in place for your state or province.   Reference Routh, D., Abess, G., Makin, D., Stohr, M. K., Hemmens, C., & Yoo, J. (2017). Transgender inmates in prisons: A review of applicable statutes and policies. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 61 (6), 645–666. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X15603745 ... View more

The teen years are, for many, a time of rewarding friendships, noble idealism (think Parkland), and an expanding vision for life’s possibilities. But for others, especially those who vary from teen norms, life can be a challenge. Nonheterosexual teens, for example, sometimes face contempt, harassment, or family rejection. And that may explain their having scored higher than other teens on measures of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts and attempts (see here, here, here, and here).   But many of these findings are based on older data and don’t reflect the increasing support of gay partnerships among North Americans and Western Europeans. In U.S. Gallup polls, for example, support for “marriages between same-sex couples” soared from 27 percent in 1996 to 64 percent in 2017. So, have the emotional challenges of being teen and gay persisted? If so, to what extent?   I’ve wondered, and recently discovered, an answer in the 2015 data from the annual UCLA/Higher Education Research Institute American Freshman survey (of 141,189 entering full-time students at a cross-section of U.S. colleges and universities). The news is mixed: Most gay/lesbian/bisexual frosh report not having struggled with depression. Being gay or lesbian in a predominantly heterosexual world remains, for a significant minority of older teens, an emotional challenge.   Can we hope that, if attitudes continue to change, this depression gap will shrink? In the meantime, the American Psychological Association offers youth, parents, and educators these helpful resources for understanding sexual orientation and gender identity, including suggestions for how “to be supportive” of youth whose sexual orientation or gender identity differs from most others. ... View more

Perceptual illusions are not only great fun, they also remind us of a basic truth: Our perceptions are more than projections of the world into our brain. As our brains assemble sensory inputs they construct our perceptions, based partly on our assumptions. When our brain uses rules that normally give us accurate impressions of the world it can, in some circumstances, fool us. And understanding how we get fooled can teach us how our perceptual system works.   A case in point is the famed Müller-Lyer illusion, for which the Italian visual artist Gianni Sarcone gives us two wonderful new examples. https://www.giannisarcone.com/3-MEDIA_Images/Muller_lyer_star_OR2.gif  https://www.giannisarcone.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Muller_Lyer_waves_S.gif   Many more informative examples can be found amid the 644 pages of the new Oxford Compendium of Visual Illusions. There I discovered a fascinating phenomenon reported by Gettysburg College psychologist Richard Russell.   First (with Professor Russell’s kind permission from his earlier article in Perception) a question: In the pair of Caucasian faces, below, which looks to be the male, and which the female? Do you (as did I) perceive the left face as male, the right face as female?   Many people do, but in actuality, they are the same androgynous face (created by averaging Caucasian male and female faces), but with one subtle difference: the researchers slightly darkened the skin (but not the lips or the eyes) in the left face and lightened the skin in the right face. Why? Because worldwide and across ethnic groups, Russell and others report, women’s skin around the lips and eyes tends to be lighter than men’s. And that means more contrast between their skin and their lips and eyes.   That natural, subtle facial sex difference enabled Russell to recreate what he calls “the illusion of sex” with a second demonstration. This time, he left the skin constant but lightened the lips and eyes of the left face, making it appear male, and he darkened the lips and eyes of the right face, increasing the contrast, making it appear female. Russell suggests that this helps explain why, in some cultures, women use facial cosmetics. Lipstick and eye shadow amplify the perceived sex difference, he notes, “by exaggerating a sexually dimorphic attribute—facial contrast.”   ... View more

As y’all know, females and males are mostly alike—in overall intelligence, in physiology, and in how we perceive, learn, and remember. All but one of our chromosomes is unisex. Yet gender differences in mating, relating, and suffering are what grab our attention. And none more than the amazingly widespread and reliably observed gender difference in vulnerability to depression.   In this new Psychological Bulletin meta-analysis, Rachel Salk, Janet Hyde, and Lyn Abramson digest studies of gender and depression involving nearly 2 million people in 90 countries. The overall finding—that women are nearly twice as likely as men to be depressed—is what textbooks have reported. What’s more noteworthy and newsworthy, in addition to the universality of women’s greater risk of depression, is the even larger risk for girls during adolescence. As their figure, below, shows, the gender difference in major depression begins early—by puberty—and peaks in early adolescence. The take-home lesson: For many girls, being 13- to 15-years-old can be a tough time of life. ... View more

One of the great joys of attending conferences – in this case, the American Psychological Association convention – is the conversations with both new and old friends. This morning I had breakfast with Linda Woolf (Webster University; an old friend). She posed an interesting question, and before my first full cup of coffee, it was a little unfair. She noted that in our professional circles we frequently talk about psychology books we think psychology majors should read. She wondered what non-psychology books I’d recommend. That’s both an easy and a difficult question. It’s easy to find book that contain psychology, but difficult in deciding of all the books out there, what books I’d recommend. The two that came pretty quickly to mind were: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown. About the University of Washington men’s crew who rowed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the book gives us a healthy does of prejudice and perseverance. The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede. On 9/11/2001 when the U.S. airspace closed, planes flying west across the Atlantic had to land in Canada. Thirty-eight of them landed in Gander, Newfoundland. Almost 7,000 visitors literally dropped into a town of 9,000 for five days. DeFede restores our faith in humanity with story after story of altruism. The musical Come From Away expands on those stories including coverage of prejudice, stress and coping, and ingroups/outgroups. (Honestly, the book may do the same, but it’s been years since I’ve read it.) After having had my full dose of coffee and a few more hours to reflect – and a chance to review my Goodreads books, here are some more non-psychology books recommended for psychology majors. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah Noah grew up in South African as “colored,” the South African term for half white/half black. His experience gets wrapped up in ingroups/outgroups, both sorting out what that means for him and being on the receiving end of other people’s assumptions about his group membership. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson Starting with World War I, African Americans started in earnest to move out of the south to points west and north. Spotlighting three people who left different places at different times for different locales, Wilkerson helps her readers understand the prejudice and discrimination that drove African Americans from the south to the different-looking prejudice and discrimination of their new homes. Sally Ride by Lynn Sherr Becoming the first U.S. woman in space had its challenges. More prejudice, discrimination, and perseverance in this book. When asked at a crew press conference in 1982 “Dr. Ride, apart from the obvious differences, how do you assess the differences in men and women astronauts?” Dr. Ride replied, “Aside from the obvious differences, I don’t think there are any.” Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery Emma Gatewood in 1955 and at the age of 67 decided to hike the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. Alone. This one will make students rethink their assumptions about gender and age. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman Paul Erdös (pronounced air-dish) was a mathematical genius. But his biography is less about intelligence than it is about… well, it’s tough to describe. Being comfortable in your own skin, may be a good descriptor. Erdös was unapologetically Erdös. He couch-surfed from the home of one mathematician to another. His hosts didn’t know when he was coming until he appeared on their doorsteps, and they didn’t know when he was leaving until he left. He would ask strangers to tie his shoes. He offered cash to grad students to solve mathematical problems. The more difficult the problem, the greater the cash award. And Erdös published prolifically. Mathematicians have an Erdös number. If you published a paper with Erdös, your number is one. If you published with someone who published a paper with Erdös, your number is two. And so on. Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schüll [This book may not technically meet the requirements of the category given the amount of psychology in it.] This book contains everything you wanted to know about slot machines and then some. If you’re teaching that pushing buttons on a slot machine is an example of positive reinforcement, you’re wrong for a healthy chunk of slot machine users. Negative reinforcement would be a better characterization. Regular users of slot machines play not to win but play to enter the zone where they don’t have to think about problems at work, with their spouse, or with their kids. Winning just means being able to not think even longer. I managed to give you a list that is all nonfiction. Please share your recommendations in the comments – and I’d love to see some fiction in the list! ... View more

In Psychology, 11 th Edition, Nathan DeWall and I report that “In everyday behavior, men tend to act as powerful people often do: talking assertively, interrupting, initiating touches, and staring.” Women tend to be less interruptive, more sensitive, and to speak with more qualifications and hedges.   Have you noticed this phenomenon in conversation or meetings?   A fresh example of men’s more intrusive speech comes from Tonja Jacobi and Dylan Schweers’ forthcoming analysis of U.S. Supreme Court interruptions by (and of) male and female justices. Their finding: “Women [were] interrupted at disproportionate rates by their male colleagues.”   Setting aside the contentious relationship between the late Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer, the three most interrupted justices were the court’s three women justices. But these are all progressive judges, so was this instead an ideology difference, with conservative (mostly male) justices interrupting liberal (mostly female) justices? Apparently not. Looking farther back, the moderate conservative Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was interrupted 2.8 times as frequently as her average male colleague.   “I don’t think that a lot of men notice that they’re doing this,” observed Jacobi. ... View more

On the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Facebook page, Cait Alice was asking for advice on how to handle a student’s misconception of how gender works. Allison Matthews recommended the gender unicorn created by the Trans Student Educational Resources group*.  If you’d like to turn this into a class activity, identify how many groups of 3 you will have in your class. Let’s say 16. Print out 16 copies, and then mark different spots on each continuum for each group.   Show students one as an example of what you are asking them to do. Using the graphic above, explain to students that the person identifies primarily as a woman who dresses and acts more masculine than feminine, whose assigned sex was female, and who is not physically attracted to anyone but is emotionally attracted to men and women with a slight preference for the former. Distribute the marked up gender unicorn handouts to your student groups, asking each group to describe their person. Walk around to each of the groups answering any questions they have. After discussion dies down, ask groups to pair up to share their descriptions. If time allows, invite a few volunteers to display their gender unicorn on the classroom’s document camera and describe their person. As a wrap-up to the activity, encourage students to think about where they fall on each of the gender unicorn dimensions – although your students probably already did this as soon as you showed them the infographic. Give each student an unmarked copy of the infographic to share with friends and family. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * This is an edited post. The original post featured the Genderbread Person ostensibly created by Sam Killermann. A few people, including Allison Matthews, reported a concern with accusations of plagiarism by Killermann. A friend and colleague shared with me this analysis of the plagiarism accusation. Because of the potential issues with plagiarism, I've decided to use an image created by "the only national organization entirely led by trans youth." ... View more

Originally posted on April 23, 2014. When we select a romantic partner, we want to know the good and the bad. Is he nice? Will she make me laugh? Getting to know the good isn’t too difficult. A first date is when the good is on full display. People primp, prepare questions in advance, and pay more than they otherwise for dinner. But how can you know whether the person who’s getting ready to sweep you off of your feet might later break your heart? Conflict is a part of all relationships. We squabble, argue, and may even insult our loved ones. You have to do more than that to break someone’s heart. To accomplish that feat, something often happens that causes you to question treasured parts of your relationship. This brings us to a common cause of broken hearts worldwide: Infidelity. What might boost the likelihood of infidelity? Gender is a key factor. Men, compared to women, are between two and four times more likely to report engaging in infidelity. Here are two things you probably didn’t know: 1.     Avoidant people—those who keep others at arm’s length, prefer to depend on themselves instead of others, and feel uncomfortable getting emotionally close to their partners—are more likely to engage infidelity. In one set of studies, my colleagues and I recruited people in relationships, measured their level of avoidance, and showed: Their eyes gravitate toward attractive alternatives to their romantic partner. They report more positive attitudes toward infidelity They report more intentions to engage infidelity They report engaging in infidelity more often than others This effect is true for both men and women. 2.     A lack of commitment explains why avoidant people engage in more infidelity. Avoidant people dislike getting close to others. Hence, they have a tough time feeling strong relationship commitment. Their lack of commitment might make avoidant people feel safe and secure. But it also weakens the commitment that often keeps urges to engage in infidelity at bay. The irony is that avoidant people keep others at a distance to prevent social rejection. By having lower relationship commitment, they’re more likely to engage in infidelity—and cause their greatest fear of rejection to come true. ... View more

Originally posted on May 15, 2014. Each day we face stressors. Our pets get sick, lightning strikes the office, or we miss loved ones. New research identified another stressor lurking in our midst: men. This research , which was reported by the New York Times , showed that rats and mice get stressed out when they’re around men. Even catching a whiff of a men’s t-shirt was enough to raise their stress hormones. The scent of a woman didn’t increase stress. Most men don’t consider themselves stressors. When I walk into a classroom, I tell my students my mission: Motivate Encourage Advocate Learn But these findings suggest that no matter what I do, my maleness may spike their stress levels. The good news is that our bodies adjust. The first day of class might be stressful, especially when you have a male instructor. Over time that stress should wash away. How far can we extrapolate these findings? Although exposure to a single male increases stress that eventually drops off, what if people were constantly bombarded with men? In societies where men outnumber women, would stress levels peak? My next post will answer that question. ... View more

Originally posted on May 16, 2014. Being around men increases stress. Do countries with more man than women have higher stress levels? In my last post, I promised to answer this question. But it’s a harder question than it seems. How do you measure a country’s level of stress? Some organizations, such as Gallup, do an excellent job surveying people around the world. I don’t work at Gallup, nor do I have access to their data. So I had to do the best I could. First, I gathered country gender composition data from our friends at the World Bank . I separated countries according to whether they had a majority of male or female citizens. The average was 50.77% women (standard deviation 1.19; Minimum: 48.19%, Maximum: 54.30%). Of the 74 countries for which data were available, 19 were male-majority and 55 were female-majority. Next, I searched for a good, comprehensive measure of country-level stress. Bloomberg made things easy. They computed a country’s stress score by combining seven factors: Annual Homicide Rate per 100,000 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita Income inequality (Gini coefficient) Corruption (as measured by Transparency International) Unemployment rate Urban air pollution (micrograms per cubic meter) Life expectancy (years at birth) Finally, I compared country-level stress between male-majority and female-majority countries. This would give me an initial answer to my question. What were the results? Countries with more men than women, compared to their female-majority counterparts, had higher levels of stress. Three factors drove the effect: corruption, pollution, and life expectancy. In each case, more men than women equaled a more corrupt, polluted, and shorter lived society. A close fourth, which wasn’t quite statistically significant (p= .063), was Gross Domestic Product per capita. If a country had a male majority (vs. female majority), GDP was lower. These findings offer a novel extension to the finding that being around men, versus women, increases rodent stress. But unlike those careful laboratory experiments, people weren’t randomly assigned to live in male- or female-majority countries. We can’t infer cause and effect. All we can conclude is that when men are present, stress seems to rise instead of fall. ... View more

Originally posted on August 28, 2014. When your friend tells you about her terrific first date, you will eventually ask the question. You might stall by inquiring about the food she ate, the jokes he told, and the outfit she wore. Eventually, you’ll ask: Is he cute? Recent research suggests that you’ll know how she arrived at her answer.  An in-depth analysis of 1,000 facial images identified three main ingredients of attractiveness: Approachability, or how friendly a person seems. A large mouth, wide nose, and curvy bottom lip were some of the strongest predictors of approachability. Youthful-attractiveness. Here, the eyes have it. To seem youthful, have large eyes. You should also avoid sporting a moustache or beard. Dominance. Looking dominant relates to having angular cheeks, large eyebrows, and slightly dark skin. These are some of the strongest predictors of each attractiveness ingredient. Of course, they don’t tell you much about people’s sense of humor, clothing style, or hobbies. For that, you’ll have to take the plunge and actually meet them. She might have large eyes and a curvy bottom lip, but would you want to date someone who never laughed at your jokes? I doubt it. Or what about an angular-cheeked, naturally tan man who always turns heads but also is profoundly dull and shallow? Maybe give him a fake phone number when he asks for yours. Attractiveness matters, especially during the initial passionate stages of a relationship. But there are many ingredients that are far more important than attractiveness when selecting a mate. Trust is key. Think about it: Would you rather date an attractive compulsive liar, or a less attractive person who always tells the truth? Self-control also fosters relationship success. Highly self-controlled people, compared with their sluggardly counterparts, are more forgiving, generous, and less aggressive. So, it’s natural to wonder whether your friend’s date is cute. You might not ask whether he has a large mouth, angular cheeks, or big eyes. But if she says, “Yes, he’s gorgeous,” you can be confident that he received an extra helping of some of these attractiveness ingredients. ... View more

Originally posted on October 21, 2014. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz uses aggregate data from Google to see if parents’ hopes for their children are gender-neutral. He reports that, actually, many parents seem eager to have smart sons and slender, beautiful daughters. You can see this for yourself (heads-up to teachers:  a cool in-class demonstration here). Google (with quote marks) and note the number of results: “Is my daughter gifted” “Is my son gifted” “Is my son overweight” “Is my daughter overweight” As an example, here’s another pair I just tried (the OR commands a Boolean search of either version): ... View more

Originally posted on February 9, 2015. Northeastern University history professor Benjamin Schmidt is making waves, after harvesting 14 million student reviews from “Rate My Professor.”  He offers a simple interactive tool that can allow you—perhaps as an in-class demonstration—to compare words that students use to describe male and female professors. You can give it a try, here.  I entered some intelligence-related words (“smart,” “brilliant,” “genius”) and some emotion-related words (“sweet,” “nasty”).  Even as one who writes about gender stereotypes, I was stunned by the gender effect. ... View more

Originally posted on June 11, 2015. It won’t surprise you to learn that your perceived gender, inferred from your biological sex, may lead people to stereotype you as best suited for masculine- or feminine-typed occupations. People perceive women as more feminine—and as better suited to presumed feminine occupations such as librarian or caregiver. They perceive men as more masculine—and as a better fit for masculine occupations such as security patrol or firefighter. But might it surprise you—as it did me—to know that research teams led by Adam Galinsky and by Kerri Johnson have found that people also have gender stereotypes associated with race? As Erika Hall, Galinsky, and Katherine Phillips explain in the June Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, “Asians are perceived as feminine and Blacks as masculine” (with Whites in between). In five studies, Hall and her colleagues found that people’s “gender profile”—based both on their sex and their race—influences others’ judgments of how well suited and hirable they are for masculine- or feminine-typed occupations. Asian women (denoted by names and checkboxes) were deemed best suited for a librarian position and least suited for a campus security patrol. And Black men were judged least suited for a librarian position and best suited for a security patrol. Whites were deemed in between. Simply said, the “gender of one’s race as well as one’s biological sex creates one’s gender profile.” And one’s sex + race gender profile predicts perceived “person-position fit.” Those conclusions, say the researchers, “shed light on how occupational gender and racial segregation persist.” Fanatic Studios/ Getty Images ... View more

Originally posted on June 16, 2015. I was alerted, by this article in Nature, to a new report on sexual orientation from the Academy of Science of South Africa.  The report is state of the art.  It’s lucid and easily readable.  It gets the important facts exactly right (methinks).  And it speaks to pertinent issues in African countries, and also to controversies here in the USA. “Spread the word. Share the report and its findings,” opined Nature in a separate editorial. The full report, here, responds, for example, to the contention that condoning homosexuality increases it.  It notes that, in African countries (in most of which same-sex relationships are illegal), “The prevalence . . . is no different from other countries in the rest of the world.”  The report estimates, from the best worldwide data, “that between 350 million and 400 million people are not heterosexual.  At least 50 million people who do not claim a heterosexual orientation live in African countries.” ... View more

Originally posted on July 28, 2015. Sherlock Holmes famously solved the “Silver Blaze” case by noticing what no one else had—the dog that didn’t bark. What grabs our attention is seldom the absence of something, but rather its visible presence. And so with sexuality. Various sexual-attraction patterns capture our fascination...except one: asexuality—the absence of sexual attraction to others. But Brock University psychologist Anthony Bogaert (a Sherlock Holmes of sex research) noticed. In a new review article, he reports what has been learned since his 2004 paper reporting that one percent of a British national sample acknowledged they had “never felt sexual attraction” to others. Some highlights (also reported in his book, Understanding Asexuality​ 😞 The numbers: In the aftermath of several other subsequent surveys, one percent still seems “a reasonable ‘working figure.’” Asexuality in animals: Like humans, lab rodents vary in sexual interest, from hypersexualized to disinterested. Ditto rams, with 12.5 percent of 584 tested by Charles Roselli and colleagues displaying no attraction either to ewes in estrus or to other rams. Asexuality does not equal lack of sexual desire. “A significant number of asexual people masturbate,” although “at a lower level than sexual people.” For asexual people, masturbation is more an expression of solitary desire, without fantasizing any attraction or desire for others. Some asexuals have—my new word for the day—“automonosexualism” (a sexual attraction “turned inward” onto oneself). Gender. “There is evidence that more women than men are asexual.” But among asexuals, more men masturbate, and “asexual men may have elevated paraphilic [atypical] attractions” that accompany their masturbation. Biology and asexuality. Asexual men and women tend to be shorter and more often non-right-handed than average. But there’s no evidence that asexual rodents and humans differ from their sexualized counterparts in levels of circulating testosterone. Is asexuality a disorder? Men’s Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) and women’s Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder (FSIAD) become DSM-5 disorders only “if the patient/client is in distress.” Thus, asexuality, unaccompanied by distress, is not a disorder. Indeed, muses Bogaert, everyday sexuality—an occasional “form of madness”—might better qualify as a disorder, given its association “with extreme and risky behaviors along with impaired cognitive function.” ... View more

Originally posted on June 8, 2016. Our personal assumptions matter, often by influencing our attitudes and public policies. Here’s an example: If you see same-sex attraction as a lifestyle choice, as swayed by social influence, or as encouraged by social tolerance, then you probably are opposed to equal employment and marriage rights for gay people. Those in fact are the prevailing assumptions in the 75 countries that legally forbid homosexual behavior. If you see sexual orientation as “inborn”—as shaped by biological and prenatal environmental influences—then you likely favor “equal rights for homosexual and bisexual people.” That being so, note Michael Bailey, Paul Vasey, Lisa Diamond, Marc Breedlove, Eric Vilain, and Marc Epprecht, in their state-of-the-art review of sexual orientation research, psychological science has much to offer our public conversation about gay rights issues. Some of their conclusions: The phenomenon: Sexual attraction, arousal, behavior, and identity usually coincide, but not always. For example, some men who identify as straight may nevertheless be strongly attracted to men. Same-sex attraction has existed across time and place. Although sexual identity and behavior are culturally influenced, same-sex activity crosses human history, dating from the era of Mesolithic rock art. Bisexual identity is multifaceted. Some claim bisexual identity after previous sexual experiences with both men and women, or, even if primarily attracted to one sex, because of occasional sexual attractions to the other sex.  “Some bisexual-identified men have bisexual genital arousal patterns and some do not.” With men, bisexuality is more often a transitional identity; with women, it is more often a stable identity. Heritability. Twin studies suggest that “about a third of variation in sexual orientation is attributable to genetic influences.” The nonsocial environment matters. One striking example is the fraternal birth order effect: The odds of a man having a same-sex orientation are about: 2% for those with no older biological brothers. 2.6% given one older biological brother, 3.5% given two older biological brothers, 4.6% given three older biological brothers, and 6.0% given four older biological brothers. The social environment matters little: “There is no good evidence that either [social influence or social tolerance] increases the rate of homosexual orientation.” If only a mad scientist could pit nature against nurture by changing, at birth, boys into girls. Castrate them as newborns, surgically feminize them, and then raise them as girls. Does such rearing socialize these “girls” into becoming attracted to males? Such surgical and social gender reassignment did happen between 1960 and 2000 after a number of babies were born with penises that were malformed or severed in surgical accidents. As teaching psychologists are aware, their gender identity was not so easily transformed. As is less well known, report the expert sexuality researchers, in each of seven known cases where sexual orientation was reported, it was predominantly or exclusively an attraction to women. “This is the result we would expect if male sexual orientation were entirely due to nature, and it is the opposite of the result expected if it were due to nurture.”­­ “If one cannot reliably make a male human become attracted to other males by cutting off his penis in infancy and rearing him as a girl, then what other psychosocial intervention could plausibly have that effect?” With such scientific evidence in mind, conclude the expert researchers, “we urge governments to reconsider the wisdom of legislation that criminalizes homosexual behavior.” ... View more

As a psychology instructor it is clear to you the myriad ways in which psychology can be used to both understand social issues and speak to solutions. In fact, the APA Guidelines for the Major (2013; see below) encourages us to help our students see the same. Debra Mashek (2016) suggests a few assignments that provide our students opportunities to connect psychology with today’s social issues. Integrative essay The instructor chooses three articles (interesting, nifty methodology, and not too difficult for students to understand – but on the surface may not have anything obviously to do with each other), and assigns one of those articles to each student, i.e. 1/3 of the class gets article A, 1/3 gets article B, and 1/3 gets article C. Each student writes a one-page summary of their assigned article and brings that with them to class. The class breaks up into groups of three, where the groups are composed of students who have all read different articles. In a jigsaw classroom format, the students tell the others in their three-person group about their article. Students then “articulate an applied question that invites application of ideas from all the articles.” Each 3-person group then co-authors a short paper (two to three pages) that identifies their applied question and how each of the three articles speak to that question. Persuasion research activity Right after Hurricane Katrina, Mashek decided she wanted her Intro Psych students to experience psychological research firsthand while also contributing to the relief effort. Mashek gave a brief lecture on foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, and reciprocity. She randomly assigned ¼ of students to foot-in-the-door, ¼ to door-in-the-face, ¼ reciprocity (she gave these students lollipops to hand to people before asking for a donation), and ¼ to a command condition (“give money”). During that same class period students were sent out in pairs to different areas of campus to return an hour later. Thirty-five students collected $600. Students reported a greater connection to the victims of Katrina after they returned than they reported before they left. Mashek used this experience as a leaping off point for discussing research methodology in the next class session. Current headline classroom discussion Pick a current headline. Break students into small groups, perhaps as an end of class activity, and give them one or two discussion questions based on the current chapter you are covering that are relevant to the headline. For example, if you are covering the social psychology chapter in Intro Psych, give students this headline from the January 9, 2016 New York Times: “Gov. Paul LePage of Maine Says Racial Comment Was a ‘Slip-Up’.” This is a short article, so you could ask students to read the article itself. Sample discussion questions: (1) What evidence is there of ingroup bias? (2) Do Gov. LePage’s comments illustrate stereotyping, prejudice, and/or discrimination? Explain. If time allows, student groups can report out in class. Alternatively, this could be a group writing assignment or a scribe for the group could post a summary of the group’s responses to a class discussion board. Students will gain an appreciation of the scope of psychology and how it is relevant to today’s social issues. This activity throughout the course should help students, after the course, to continue to see psychology at play. The APA Guidelines for the Major (2013) include these indicators related to social issues: 1.3A Articulate how psychological principles can be used to explain social issues, address pressing societal needs, and inform public policy 3.3c Explain how psychology can promote civic, social, and global outcomes that benefit others 3.3C Pursue personal opportunities to promote civic, social, and global outcomes that benefit the community. 3.3d Describe psychology-related issues of global concern (e.g., poverty, health, migration, human rights, rights of children, international conflict, sustainability) 3.3D Consider the potential effects of psychology-based interventions on issues of global concern American Psychological Association. (2013). APA guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major: Version 2.0. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/undergrad/index.aspx Mashek, D. (2016, January 4). Bringing the psychology of social issues to life. Lecture presented at National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology in Tradewinds Island Grand Resort, St. Petersburg Beach. Seelye, K. Q. (2016, January 9). Gov. Paul LePage of Maine Says Racial Comment Was a 'Slip-up'. The New York Times . Retrieved January 9, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/08/gov-paul-lepage-of-maine-denies-making-racist-remarks ... View more