Getting the gist of sex ed.

In the United States we have higher rates of teen pregnancy than in many other Western countries. We also know that our teenagers are at high risk for STIs, sexually transmitted infections. To combat these problems, we often require teens to participate in sexual education programs. However, the type of program that is most effective is still debated. This week's meme offers a humorous suggestion:

Because even the most mature adult parents can be worn down by incessant crying and endless repetition, the joke implies that if teenagers experienced these things it would be unforgettable and they would abstain from sex. The joke also implies that teaching statistics like, "six week old babies spend 30% of their awake time crying," is not necessary; instead teenagers will remember a take home message like, "babies cry a lot."

This emphasis on gist, or take home message, over specific quantitative facts is applied more formally to sexual education by Reyna and Mills (2014). These authors investigated if concepts from Fuzzy Trace Theory could make a pre-existing sex ed. curriculum more effective. Past research on Fuzzy Trace Theory suggests that better memory of ideas and better decision-making comes from understanding the the gist, the take home message, as opposed to weighing the pros and cons based on detailed facts or figures that are more forgettable. Because these gist-based thoughts are related to one's emotions and values, they allow for very rapid decision-making.

Their experiment followed more than 700 adolescents, ages 14-19, during a 16 session intervention period and for one year after its completion. The participants were randomly assigned to three types of interventions: an existing sexual education program called Reducing the Risk (RTR); a version of Reducing the Risk that had been modified to add ideas from Fuzzy Trace Theory (RTR+); a Control group focusing on communication skills unrelated to sexuality.

Reducing the Risk (RTR) teaches teens how to recognize situations of sexual risk, how to resist pressure to have sex, and how to reduce risk of pregnancy with contraception and infection by using condoms. Teens enrolled in this program should come to realize that they are personally at risk and that they possess the ability to avoid or reduce sexually related risk. The sessions usually include a factual presentation by an adult leader followed by activities such as guided role playing. For example, the leader might present detailed factual data like, "60% of teenagers report that they used condoms during their most recent sexual experience," followed by guided role play of how to reason with a partner who does not want to use a condom. This program is considered to be effective at delaying first sexual experiences and increasing the use of birth control and infection protection. However, Reyna and Mills note that there is little evidence to show if these effects are lasting.

Because Fuzzy Trace Theory predicts that gist thinking should have a lasting effect on decision making, the authors modified RTR with ideas from this theory to create RTR+. This version is identical to RTR with two additions that emphasize gist. First, at the end of every lesson students are presented with one line summaries of the take home ideas of risk from the lesson. For example, "You should use a condom every time you have sex." Second, the participants in RTR+ receive a checklist of possible values, such as, "I will use condoms every time I have sex," that they are asked to rate themselves on after every lesson. Because gist related decision making is closely influenced by our values, asking students to repeatedly clarify their values should also provoke attention to generalized risks related to sex.

All participants' sexual experience, and beliefs about sex and disease prevention were measured during the intervention, and at three months, six months, and 12 months after the intervention ended. The results demonstrated that the teenagers who had been randomly assigned to RTR and RTR+ showed overall lower risk in their behavior and beliefs than the teenagers who had been assigned to the Control condition.

When the results from RTR and RTR+ were compared, overall RTR+ was considered to be more successful. RTR+, that included Fuzzy Trace Theory's emphasis on gist, was related to:
*a lower rate of students who started having sex during that 12 month period.
*the lowest increase in the number of sexual partners during that 12 month period.
*the smallest increase in positive attitude toward sex (thinking that having sex at this age is a good idea).
*the smallest increase in beliefs that parents and peers think sex was okay for them to experience at this age.
*the highest belief that they were at risk for generalized (take home message) risks associated with sex. This is a measure of gist thinking - so it is not surprising that the teens in RTR+ demonstrated more of this.
*the highest knowledge of sex related risks lasting up to six months after the intervention.
*the highest recognition of warning signals of sexual risk.

On the other hand, RTR, the original sexual education program, was related to:
*more favorable attitudes toward condom use during that 12 month period.
*more agreement with gist-based summaries of sexual risk as measured three months after the intervention. This is another measure of gist thinking - so it IS surprising that the teens in RTR demonstrated more of this

The results were further influenced when the participants' races were taken into account. Reyna and Mills compared results from the three most prominent groups represented in their sample: African American; Hispanic; and White. Curiously, the authors decided to add data from Asian participants into the category White because the responses from those groups were similar. So data reported in relation to White participants should be understood as White and Asian. However, an improvement to this study would have been to further diversify the sample so that Asian adolescents were properly represented.

How did race influence the results? For example, RTR+:
*initially improved African American participants' attitudes toward condoms, but that effect disappeared after the intervention was over.
*increased White participants' beliefs that they could successfully use condoms.
*was related to higher sexual risk knowledge for Hispanic and White teens.
*increased African American and White participants' belief that they were at risk for generalized (take home message) risks associated with sex. This is a measure of gist thinking - so it is not surprising that some teens in RTR+ demonstrated more of this. However, it is surprising that Hispanic participants did not demonstrate more of this in RTR+.

Race also influenced the results of the other intervention. For example, RTR:
*increased Hispanic and White participants' belief that parents and peers think condoms should be used when having sex.
*increased Hispanic and White participants' belief that they were at risk for generalized (take home message) risks associated with sex. This is a measure of gist thinking - so it IS surprising that some of the teens in RTR demonstrated more of this.

Taken together, the results suggest that including an emphasis on the gist of sex related risks could be a positive addition to sexuality education if we want to encourage teenagers to delay sexual experience and to use condoms to prevent infection. This statement is based on results that reached statistical significance, meaning that the differences between teens assigned to RTR and RTR+ were not simply due to chance.

Some of these differences seem substantial. For example, Reyna and Mills note that being enrolled in RTR+ was 84% more effective at delaying the start of sexual activity when compared to the Control condition. At the same time some the differences were often very small even though they reached statistical significance. For example, teens assigned to RTR+ had fewer sexual partners than teens assigned to the regular RTR program. This result seems less impressive when you read that the teens in RTR+ reported an average of  2.15 partners while the teens in RTR reported an average of 2.21. In terms of a practical difference that would be of interest to parents and educators, this is almost nothing: both groups had about two sexual partners during that year.

Another issue is that interventions need to be tailored to the characteristics of the audience to be effective. The influence of race in the present study is especially important to note because teenagers from different racial groups differ in: how old they are when they start having sex; their risk of pregnancy (or getting somebody pregnant); and their risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Reyna and Mills also acknowledge that further research needs to focus on how and why concepts from Fuzzy Trace Theory may impact the sexual behaviors and beliefs of adolescents from diverse backgrounds.

Further Reading:

The Reyna and Mills (2014) article can be accessed through your local college library.

Watch a lecture by Dr. Valerie Reyna (one of the authors of this week's article) on "Risky Decision Making in Adolescence." This talk, given at Cornell University, covers, "...developmental differences in the way adolescents make decisions and reviews her research regarding why adolescents perceive risks and benefits and yet take more risks."

If you are interested in decreasing adolescent pregnancy and STIs, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy website includes statistics (state and national) and an excellent comparison of effective programs aimed at decreasing these problems. 

BONUS: The Reyna and Mills (2014) article includes a particularly cringe-worthy example used in RTR (and RTR+) as a warning sign that, "...unsafe sex may be imminent...": "being alone with a significant other, lights low and soft music playing..." (p. 1631). As goofy as that might sound to a modern teenager, I suppose that we do have evidence of its truth from the classic 1955 Disney film, "Lady and the Tramp."

Give In...to Gender Transcendence

If I could be Queen of the World one of my wishes would be for everyone to have the freedom of Gender Role Transcendence meaning that we would each do and like what we are good at and what interests us and not worry if people of our gender or sex are "supposed to" do or like those things in our culture.   One fellow who seems to have achieved this is featured in this week's meme:

This meme is a play on a quotation from "Star Wars:  Return of the Jedi" in which Darth Vader's BFF, The Emperor Palpatine, goads Luke Skywalker by saying, "Give in to your anger."  The humor comes from portraying the Dark Side's most famous General in a stereotypically feminine way:  we associate being emotional (but not being angry); knitting; the color pink; sitting in a closed position; crafting; and the word "pretty" with the feminine gender role.  Since Darth Vader does not seem to care if he is breaking gender stereotypes or not, he is just doing something that he enjoys, we can say that he is showing Gender Role Transcendence.

How would an average man, not a Sith Lord, develop Gender Role Transcendence?  Gender Role Journey Theory proposes that adults move from buying into our culture's gender roles, to having mixed feelings about them, this ambivalence gives way to anger about these roles which can spur actions to fights those roles, and finally transcendence, meaning that they can be whatever mix of those gender roles that suits who they really are (O'Neil & Carroll, 1988).

A recent article by McDermott and Schwartz (2013) used a measure based on this theory to categorize young adult men (ages 18-36) into four groups that represent four stages toward Gender Role Transcendence:  Not Questioning/Accepting of Traditional Gender Roles; Questioning With Strong Ambivalence (confusion and fear); Questioning With Weak Ambivalence (confusion and fear); and Pro-Feminist Activities.  The authors did not find evidence that any of their participants had moved into the final stage of transcendence, but they did discover that the men who were the closest to it - the participants in the Pro-Feminist Activities category - tended to be older.  This suggests that few men in their 20s or 30s are likely to be in Gender Role Transcendence - instead in this sample 70% of the men were Questioning With either Strong or Weak Ambivalence.  However with increasing age we would guess that more of those men would reach Gender Role Transcendence.  True to our meme, the wisdom of the Internet estimates Darth Vader's age at death to be 45; as a midlife man he would be more likely to have reached that state of mind.

The men in the Pro-Feminist subgroup were also more likely to be married or engaged (to women).  This is a classic example of a positive correlation because we do not know what is causing these two traits to hang together.  It could be, as McDermott and Schwartz suggest, that these men, "...may have learned to be flexible in their gender role ideology as part of navigating intimate relationships [with women]" (p. 208).  On the other hand, it may be that viewing women as equals (Pro-Feminist ideology) makes you an appealing partner to women for committed relationships.  It could also be a third variable: most heterosexual adults get married in their late 20s or 30s, so increased age might separately encourage men to view women as equals AND encourage them to get engaged/married.  So we cannot be sure if Darth Vader's marriage to Padmé Amidala was a cause of, a result of, or just a coincidence with his Gender Role Transcendence.

If you - male, female, or anyone in between - are looking to transcend the roles that our culture has assigned to your sex or gender you don't need to have mastered The Force.  My best advice is to just be yourself - which, by the way, does get easier as you get older.  If you need further encouragement, here are a young Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack singing on the 1970s children's television special, "Free to Be You and Me."

Further Reading:

You can access the McDermott and Schwartz (2013) article at your local college library.

A Master's Thesis in Cultural Psychology by John Pianka (2013):  "The Power of the Force: Race, Gender, and Colonialism in the Star Wars Universe."  Darth Vader may have transcended gender in our meme, but gender stereotypes are plentiful in the series.

The Huffington Post ran an article on men and knitting: "Bros and Rows."  This was also published in 2013!

Saying "I love you"...

For this post I have to revert to preschool scatological humor for just a moment...

so if a brief, funny reference to poop is offensive...

read no further.

I have often thought that diarrhea is really the perfect excuse if you want to leave a boring situation.  If anyone tries to stop your departure, whispering, "I have diarrhea," will be the instant get-out-of-jail-free card because everybody has been there and -- for goodness sake -- nobody wants you to stick around in that state.  

With this shared human experience we introduce this week's meme:

When I searched this meme on the Internet I found a curious thing:  like this version starring Optimistic O'Connell, the other versions display a male making this statement.  Ignore the diarrhea part for now - what interested me was that this is a meme of about a confession of love.  And some versions -- like this one -- convey that this confession is being expressed to a female.

Past research suggests that, in heterosexual dating relationships, men tend to tell their partners, "I love you," earlier women do.  A pair of studies by Ackerman, Griskevicis, and Li (2011) confirm that trend, and demonstrate that this reality is the opposite of our stereotype.  Sixty-four percent of college students (who were stopped on a street corner and offered, "candy and juice drinks" (p. 1082) for their insights - I guess that is all it takes...) actually believed that the reverse was true:  that women say "I love you" first.

Ackerman et al. (2011)  includes other laboratory studies about how people feel when their partners just can't hold it in and blurt out "I love you."  Not surprisingly:  they like it.  But does the timing matter and what do we interpret that "I love you" to mean?  Because the authors come from an Evolutionary Psychology point of view, they were particularly interested in the variable of sex.

The authors' final studies determined that men are happiest when their female partners say "I love you," before the relationship has become sexual; women are happiest when that confession of love occurs after sex has been initiated.  This gender difference meshed well with the participants' reported interpretations of "I love you" at different points in the relationship:  men interpreted women's pre-sex "I love you" to mean, "I will probably have sex with you in the future;" while women interpreted a pre-sex "I love you" to mean, "I am trying to convince you to have sex with me."  If instead men's first "I love you" occurs after sex is introduced into the relationship, women interpret that same phrase to mean, "I will stick around for you."

Ackerman et al. invoke Evolutionary theory to interpret these findings.  The basic idea, put forth by researchers such as Buss, is that men have evolved to look for baby-makers - so they would like it if they get the signal that sexual reproduction might be possible.  Women have evolved to look for a mate who will stick around when they are pregnant and nursing babies - so they would like it if they get the signal that a guy is in it for the long-haul and not just looking for one night of reproduction of the fittest.

Evolutionary theory is one way to look at gender differences.  An alternative point of view, Social Role Theory, comes from Eagly and Wood (1999).  They suggest that today's gender stereotypes may have their roots in the long history of men having more power than women.  This inequality came from some biological differences (men are stronger and faster; solely women contend with pregnancy and breast feeding) that gave way to common roles that men and women took on in society.  Seeing thousands of years with more men in leadership positions we still leap to conclusions that all men are better leaders than all women; seeing thousands of years with more women than men caring for children we still leap to conclusions that all women are more nurturing than all men.

So it may be that evolutionary reproductive urges are guiding the timing and interpretation of "I love you."  It could also be that Social Role Theory is guiding these behaviors.  In that case, men's history of greater power and our stereotype of them as being leaders allow them to take more risks in relationships by saying "I love you" first and not being scared off if women say it before sex has occurred.  Likewise, women's history of less power and our stereotype of them as caregivers might encourage them to hold back that "I love you" until they have evidence (like sex) that their partners will be glad to hear this.

At this point we cannot say which perspective is right.  But what you can know for certain is this:  if somebody tells you "I love you," and you don't feel the same way...just tell them you have diarrhea and they will get out of your way.

Further Reading:

A post on a related topic from the Science of Relationships blog:  "Who Falls in Love First"?  This study is also explained using Evolutionary theory; can you imagine how Social Role Theory might interpret the same findings? 

Click here for home remedies for diarrhea and for a broken heart.

You can find a version of this article on Joshua Ackerman's website and obtain the published article through your local university library:  Ackerman, J.M, Griskevicius, V., Li, N.P. (2011) Let's get serious: Communicating commitment in romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(6),1079-1094.