Testosterone, gender identity and gender-stereotyped personality attributes

Sex/gender differences in personality associated with gender stereotyped behavior are widely studied in psychology yet remain a subject of ongoing debate. Exposure to testosterone during developmental periods is considered to be a primary mediator of many sex/gender differences in behavior. Extensions of this research has led to both lay beliefs and initial research about individual differences in basal testosterone in adulthood relating to "masculine" personality. In this study, we explored the relationships between testosterone, gender identity, and gender stereotyped personality attributes in a sample of over 400 university students (65 % female assigned at birth). Participants provided ratings of their self-perceived masculinity and femininity, resulting in a continuous measure of gender identity, and a set of agentic and communal personality attributes. A saliva sample was also provided for assay of basal testosterone. Results showed no compelling evidence that basal testosterone correlates with gender-stereotyped personality attributes or explains the relationship between sex/gender identity and these attributes, across, within, or covarying out sex assigned at birth. Contributing to a more gender diverse approach to assessing sex/gender relationships with personality and testosterone, our continuous measure of self-perceived masculinity and femininity predicted additional variance in personality beyond binary sex and showed some preliminary but weak relationships with testosterone. Results from this study cast doubt on the activational testosterone-masculinity hypothesis for explaining sex differences in gender stereotyped traits and within-sex/gender variation in attributes associated with agency and communality.

A confirmatory factor analysis approach was found to accurately estimate the reliability of transition ratings

INTRODUCTION

Transition ratings (TRs) are single item measures which ask patients to report on their health change. They allow for a simple assessment of improvement or deterioration and are frequently used as an "anchor" to determine interpretation thresholds on a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM). Despite their widespread use, a routinely applicable method to assess their reliability is lacking. This paper introduces a method to estimate the reliability of TRs based on confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for categorical data.

METHOD

We modelled longitudinal PROM data as independent factors representing Time 1 and Time 2 in a CFA model. PROM items taken at Time 1 (T1) loaded on the first factor, although the same items taken at Time 2 (T2) loaded on the second. The TR item loaded onto both T1 and T2 factors. Three models with various constraints on the loadings and thresholds were examined. The communality (R²) statistic was used as a measure of the TR reliability. The approach was evaluated using simulated data and exemplified in four empirical datasets.

RESULTS

The simplest CFA model without constraints on the item loadings and thresholds performed equivalently to models with constraints on loadings and thresholds over time. Further constraints on the TR item loadings to be equal and opposite over time caused biased TR reliability estimates if the T1 and T2 loadings differed in magnitude. In the four empirical datasets, reliability of TRs ranged from 0.27 to 0.48. In three examples the TR had numerically stronger loading on T2 than on T1.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Results support the use of the proposed method in understanding the reliability of TRs. Empirical study results reflect the typical range of reliability that has previously been reported for single items. Methodological considerations to improve TR reliability are presented, and developments of this method, are posited.

A possible representation of Yin Yang five elements (Yin Yang Wu Xing): Hypothesis of Dual Five-Body-Coordination

BACKGROUND

The idea of Yin Yang Wu Xing, traditionally adopted and practiced in East-Asian medicine, has not been incorporated into the theoretical framework of modern medicine. It is therefore desired to show that Yin Yang Wu Xing is a manifestation of a higher-level faculty of cooperating system, thus making it suitable for a modern frame of thought.

METHODS

A higher-level faculty of the cooperating system is formulated in the scheme of Dual Five-Body Coordination. The stability of this scheme is examined mathematically and the feasibility of its physical realization is estimated.

RESULTS

The Dual Five-Body Coordination scheme, which overlaps substantially with the conceptual structure of Yin Yang Wu Xing, is stable and has survival merit. An imaginable conjecture based on physical reality confirms its physical feasibility.

CONCLUSION

The Dual Five-Body Coordination scheme has potential utilization in various fields including biology and sociology. Once the theoretical framework is solidified, the Dual Five-Body Coordination scheme can be readily applied in practical research in modern medicine.

Keeping in Touch with Context: Non-verbal Behavior as a Manifestation of Communality and Dominance

This research investigated the influence of observed touch on the perceptions of communality and dominance in dyadic interactions. We manipulated four key situational features of haptic behavior in two experiments: the initiation, reciprocity, the degree of formality of touch (Studies 1 and 2), and the context of the interaction (Study 2). The results showed that the default perception of touch, irrespective of whether it is initiated or reciprocated, is the communal intention of the toucher. Furthermore, the initiation of touch was seen as an act of dominance, particularly, when the contact between the actors was primed as being hierarchical. Reciprocation neutralized the perceived asymmetry in dominance, but such inferences seemed to hinge on the fit of the touch with the context: reciprocation of formal touch reduced the asymmetry in the hierarchical context, whereas reciprocation of informal touch reduced the asymmetry in the non-hierarchical context.

Voluntary and involuntary emotional memory following an analogue traumatic stressor: the differential effects of communality in men and women

BACKGROUND

Men and women show differences in performance on emotional processing tasks. Sex also interacts with personality traits to affect information processing. Here we examine effects of sex, and two personality traits that are differentially expressed in men and women - instrumentality and communality - on voluntary and involuntary memory for distressing video-footage.

METHODS

On session one, participants (n = 39 men; 40 women) completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, which assesses communal and instrumental traits. After viewing film-footage of death/serious injury, participants recorded daily involuntary memories (intrusions) relating to the footage on an online diary for seven days, returning on day eight for a second session to perform a voluntary memory task relating to the film.

RESULTS

Communality interacted with sex such that men with higher levels of communality reported more frequent involuntary memories. Alternatively, a communality × sex interaction reflected a tendency for women with high levels of communality to perform more poorly on the voluntary recognition memory task.

LIMITATIONS

The study involved healthy volunteers with no history of significant psychological disorder. Future research with clinical populations will help to determine the generalizability of the current findings.

CONCLUSION

Communality has separate effects on voluntary and involuntary emotional memory. We suggest that high levels of communality in men and women may confer vulnerability to the negative effects of stressful events either through the over-encoding of sensory/perceptual-information in men or the reduced encoding of contextualised, verbally-based, voluntarily accessible representations in women.

[A guide on the use of factor analysis in the assessment of construct validity]

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study is to provide researchers with a simplified approach to undertaking exploratory factor analysis for the assessment of construct validity.

METHODS

All articles published in 2010, 2011, and 2012 in Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing were reviewed and other relevant books and articles were chosen for the review.

RESULTS

In this paper, the following were discussed: preliminary analysis process of exploratory factor analysis to examine the sample size, distribution of measured variables, correlation coefficient, and results of KMO measure and Bartlett's test of sphericity. In addition, other areas to be considered in using factor analysis are discussed, including determination of the number of factors, the choice of rotation method or extraction method of the factor structure, and the interpretation of the factor loadings and explained variance.

CONCLUSION

Content validity is the degree to which elements of an assessment instrument are relevant to and representative of the targeted construct for a particular assessment purpose. This measurement is difficult and challenging and takes a lot of time. Factor analysis is considered one of the strongest approaches to establishing construct validity and is the most commonly used method for establishing construct validity measured by an instrument.