Associative responses to double entendre words as a function of repression-sensitization and sexual stimulation

Latencies of Restricted Associations to Double-Entendre Sexual Words as a Function of Personality Variables

Sexually avoidant and non-avoidant subjects as defined by the personality constructs of sex-guilt, social desirability, and repression-sensitization were required to give both sexual and asexual responses to the same set of sexual double-entendre words. With the exception of the repression-sensitization variable, the results were generally in the direction predicted from a stimulus-encoding analysis of the way in which subjects process sexual double-entendre words. In general, sexually avoidant subjects showed longer latencies than non-avoidant subjects when giving sexual responses but not on asexual responses. Likewise, sexual response latencies were significantly longer than asexual response latencies for sex-avoidant but not for sexually non-avoidant subjects. Sexual responses were also uniformly associated with longer latencies than asexual responses.

Social Psychology and the Study of Sexual Behavior

Past research on sexual behavior may be viewed as a progressive evolution from less taboo concerns (animal behavior, studies of primitive cultures, and abnormality) to the succession of "shocks" that attended the extension of sexual knowledge to the normal, contemporary human sphere with Freud, Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson. Social psychologists were attracted to this area by the revolutionary societal changes in attitudinal permissiveness and in actual behavior, by the research initiated by the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, and by a pressing applied interest in solving the problems of unwanted and unneeded conception. Sex research is of special value to our field because it has built-in experimental impact, its technology includes the direct nonverbal assessment of a motivational-emotional state, and it is of obvious relevance to innumerable real- life issues. Upon examination, many of the traditional principles and research paradigms of social-personality psychologists may be perceived as being directly relevant to an understanding of sexuality. A tentative model of a social psychological approach to this research domain (the Sexual Behavior Sequence) is presented. Finally, the interdisciplinary and international aspects of sex research are noted.

Evaluation of internal validity using modern test theory: Application to word association

Word association tests (WATs) have been widely used to examine associative/semantic memory structures and shown to be relevant to behavior and its underpinnings. Despite successful applications of WATs in diverse research areas, few studies have examined psychometric properties of these tests or other open-ended cognitive tests of common use. Modern test theory models, such as item response theory (IRT) models, are well suited to evaluate interpretations of this class of test. In this evaluation, unidimensional IRT models were fitted to the data on the WAT designed to capture associative memory relevant to an important applied issue: casual sex in a sample of 1,138 adult drug offenders. Using association instructions, participants were instructed to generate the first behavior or action that came to mind in response to cues (e.g., "hotel/motel") that might elicit casual sex-related responses. Results indicate a multitude of evidence for the internal validity of WAT score interpretations. All WAT items measured a single latent trait of casual sex-related associative memory, strongly related to the latent trait, and were invariant across gender, ethnicity, age groups, and sex partner profiles. The WAT was highly informative at average-to-high levels of the latent trait and also associated with risky sex behavior, demonstrating the usefulness of this class of test. The study illustrates the utility of the assessments in this at-risk population as well as the benefits of application of the modern test theory models in the evaluation of internal validity of open-ended cognitive test score interpretation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Retrospective Parental Ratings and Free Associative Sexual Responsivity in Male and Female College Students

The purpose of this study was that of examining the verbal sexuality of males and females in relation co their perception of the child-rearing attitudes and behavior of their parents. Subjects rated both their mothers and fathers on the Parent-child Relations Questionnaire and the Traditional Family Ideology Scale. All subjects also gave free associations to homophones and double-entendre words loaded for sexual meaning. For both sexes, but especially females, free associative sexual responses were significantly correlated with maternal ratings, while paternal ratings were unrelated to sexual responses. There was some evidence that mothers have opposite effects upon the verbal sexuality of sons and daughters. All subjects gave their free associations to a female experimenter.

REPRESSION OF SEXUAL ASSOCIATIONS: COGNITIVE INHIBITION, FAMILIARITY, OR SOCIAL INHIBITION?

Previous research on the Repression-Sensitization (R-S) Scale found that repressors gave fewer sexual associations than sensitizers on a double entendre word association task. That difference, however, may have been due either to differential familiarity, or external, social inhibition, rather than to internal, cognitive defense processes. In the present experiment, male sensitizers, neutrals, and repressors performed an identification task and an association task with word lists containing double entendres. They received one of three instruction sets, designed either to facilitate, inhibit, or disregard the possible sexual associations. The identification task results failed to support the familiarity hypothesis. The association task results suggested that repressors are more responsive to external, social inhibition cues than are either sensitizers or neutrals.