Donald L. Mosher

Measuring a macho personality constellation

Abstract A Hypermasculinity Inventory was developed to measure a macho personality constellation consisting of three components: (a) calloused sex attitudes toward women, (b) violence as manly, and (c) danger as exciting. The 30 forced-choice items were selected by a two-stage internal consistency item analysis. Issues of substantive and structural validity were addressed by considering item content, test format, homogeneity of items, and the factor structure of items. The Cronbach α coefficient for the Hypermasculinity Inventory was .89 in the present sample of 135 college men. External validity was assessed by correlating scores of the Hypermasculinity Inventory with self-reported drug use, r (135) = .26, p r (135) = .65, p r (136) = .47, p r (135) = .38, p D. N. Jackson, 1974 , Goshen, NY: Research Psychologists Press). The discussion considered further research that is needed to adduce additional evidence for the construct validity of the Hypermasculinity Inventory as a measure of the macho personality pattern.

Macho personality, sexual aggression, and reactions to guided imagery of realistic rape

Abstract To relate the macho personality constellation to mens reports of sexual aggression, 175 nineteen-year old, middle-class, college sophomores anonymously completed the Hypermasculinity Inventory and a newly constructed Aggressive Sexual Behavior Inventory. A majority of the men used force or exploitation to gain sex from dates. As hypothesized, the macho personality, r (173) = .33, p r (173) = .53, was correlated with a history of sexual aggression. To study the effects of macho personality, a history of sexual aggression, and the treatment variables of rapist-force and victim-resistance on mens subjective sexual arousal and emotional experiences during the guided imagining of a realistic, noneroticized rape, 125 men returned for a second session in which they were randomly assigned by groups to four conditions, two levels of rapist-force × two levels of victim-resistance. Macho personality was related to experiencing less affective disgust, anger, fear, distress, shame, contempt, and guilt as the men imagined committing a rape, confirming a portion of the hypothesis. Men with a history of sexual aggression experienced more interest and subjective sexual arousal, as hypothesized, but they also, contrary to expectations, experienced more affective anger, distress, fear, shame, and guilt. These results were discussed as evidence of the construct validity of the macho personality constellation and as reflecting the revivification of moodcongruent, state memories in the men with a history of sexual aggression.

College men and women respond to X‐rated videos intended for male or female audiences: Gender and sexual scripts

To assess psychosexual responses to X‐rated videos intended for male or female audiences, 200 male and 195 female undergraduates were randomly assigned to view one of six videos: three X‐rated videos intended for men and three X‐rated videos designed by and for women. Reactions were assessed on measures of sexual arousal, affective response, absorption, and sexual behavior. As predicted, men reported more positive. psychosexual responses to all X‐rated videos than did women. In comparison to videos intended for men, which activated negative affect, women reported more sexual arousal, more positive and less negative affect, more absorption, and more frequent intercourse after viewing the videos designed for women. A preference for the sexual script of role enactment, which is more common in men than women, was related to psychosexual responsiveness to X‐rated videos of both men and women. But the script of partner engagement, which is more common in women than men, did not predict responsiveness to the videos.

The Meaning and Measurement of Guilt

Mosher presents a comprehensive review of the literature on the objective measurement of guilt. Much of this work has been done by Mosher and his colleagues, and their work has culminated not only in the successful measurement of guilt but in well-differentiated and relatively independent scales for measuring sex-guilt, hostility-guilt, and moral-guilt. By beginning his project on the measurement of guilt with an incomplete-sentences test, Mosher anchored his test items in the language and phenomenology of a broad sample of individuals.

Jealous Conflict in Dating Couples

80 steadily dating couples were assigned by sex to jealous or nonjealous role-playing conditions in which one partner was asked to assume a distancing role while the other was asked to overcome the distance and try to establish closeness with the partner. Using Raush, et al.s (1974) method of studying interpersonal conflict through improvisation, it was found that persons in distant roles and experiencing jealousy used significantly more rejection and coercion, especially guilt-induction, than did subjects who experienced distance for nonjealous reasons. No sex differences were noted with regard to the use of rejection and coercion. However, men selected their issues of jealousy as sexual while women selected jealous issues which involved a loss of time and attention.

Sex guilt and sex myths in college men and women

Abstract Inventories measuring sex guilt, sex experience, and sex myths were completed anonymously by 87 males and 88 female college students to study the prevalence of sex myths and the relation of belief in sex myths to the level of sex experience and the affective‐cognitive structure of sex guilt. College men endorsed significantly more sex myths than college women. The level of sex experience was not correlated with belief in sex myths. Sex guilt was negatively correlated with level of sex experience and positively correlated with belief in sex myths. High‐sex‐guilt males endorsed myths portraying sex as dangerous, and high‐sex‐guilt females regarded virginity as important. It was concluded that structured sex education and values clarification are needed to complement and amend traditional socialization into hetero‐sexuality.

Three dimensions of depth of involvement in human sexual response 1

Abstract A model proposed to account for hypnotic phenomena is extended and specifically applied to understanding human sexual response. It is proposed that orgasmic response is potentiated by effective sexual stimulation that is subjectively experienced as (1) pleasurable sexual sensations and (2) the emotions of excitement and joy. Effective sexual stimulation is a joint function of the density of physical sexual stimulation and depth of involvement in the sexual contact episode. Involvement is a complex of psychological processes in which there is an interaction of fundamental emotions (interest‐excitement and enjoyment‐joy) with cognitions and actions that can be described by three dimensions: (1) sexual role enactment, (2) sexual trance, and (3) engagement with the sex partner. The fundamental emotions of excitement and joy amplify sex drive, are a source of sexual pleasure and meaning, and are bonded to specific preferred dimensions of involvement. The concept of depth is used to describe the state ...

On differentiating shame and shyness.

To differentiate shame from shyness on the Differential Emotions Scale, the shame adjectives—ashamed, disgraced, humiliated—were distinguished from the shyness adjectives—shy, sheepish, bashful. The Differential Emotions Scale was completed by 127 males and 130 females for six randomly ordered emotions in life situations: shame, shyness, embarrassment, guilt, anxiety, and depression. In life situations, the situation of shame in comparison to shyness was more unpleasantly experienced with significantly higher elevations on shame, guilt, distress, anger, disgust, surprise, and contempt factors, and significantly lower levels on shyness, interest, embarrassment, and enjoyment factors. The rank-order correlation between the emotional profiles in the shame and shyness situations was inverse and nonsignificant. The experiences of shame and shyness occurred at significantly different intensities within life situations epitomizing shame, shyness, embarrassment, guilt, and depression. Some sex differences in emotional experience emerged. The results strongly supported the empirical proposition that shame and shyness can be differentiated on the Differential Emotions Scale and weakly supported the proposition that shame and shyness are different theoretical constructs within differential emotions theory.

Contributions of sex guilt and masturbation guilt to women's contraceptive attitudes and use

The purposes of this study were, first, to confirm inverse relationships between sex guilt and contraceptive use and attitudes and, second, to demonstrate that guilt regarding masturbation in comparison to sex guilt was a specific inhibitor of diaphragm use. In a sample of 186 single college women, sex guilt accounted for 28% of the variance in nine measures of contraceptive attitudes, thereby confirming the hypothesized inverse relationship. Users of safe, coitus‐independent, contraceptives scored lower on sex guilt than noncontraceptors. Moreover, the safe contraceptors, who used the pill or IUD, scored lower on sex guilt than women who relied on coitus‐dependent methods such as foam, suppositories, or condoms for contraception, which confirmed the second hypothesis. The third hypothesis was that masturbation guilt was inversely correlated with contraceptive attitudes. Including a measure of masturbation guilt along with sex guilt in a hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that masturbation...

A causal model of sexual arousal to erotic fantasies

To test a causal model derived from discrete affect (Tomkins, 1962) and involvement (Mosher, 1980) theories, 120 male and 121 female subjects responded to four erotic conditions with self‐reports of discrete affects and subjective sexual arousal. The four erotic conditions were (a) recall of a past heterosexual episode, (b) recall of a past masturbatory episode, (c) free sex fantasy, and (d) guided sex fantasy. The model posits (a) a direct effect of sex on sex guilt only; (b) sex guilt and masturbation guilt would have direct effects and indirect effects on sexual arousal; and (c) discrete positive affects would amplify sexual arousal, discrete negative affects would attenuate sexual arousal, and discrete affects would mediate the indirect effects of sex guilt on sexual arousal. Covariance structure analysis (Duncan, 1975; Kenny, 1979) was used to generate path coefficients. Incremental fit indices indicated an excellent goodness of fit of the model. Sex had no significant paths. Sex guilt had both direc...