Ira E. Robinson

The Premarital Sexual Revolution Among College Females.

A survey of 395 college students in a southern university was conducted to ascertain the extent of change in sexual behavior and attitudes from data gathered five years ago. The major changes in reported incidence of premarital coitus and petting were manifested by females with males remaining approximately the same as the previous study. Attitudes toward certain aspects of sexual behavior were reported by the females to be more liberal while the males were more conservative than in the previous study.

Change in sexual behavior and attitudes of college students.

A survey of 244 college students in a Southern university was conducted to ascertain the extent of change in sexual behavior and attitudes from data reported by Kinsey in 1948. No major changes in reported incidence of premarital coitus or petting were found. Attitudes toward certain aspects of sexual behavior were changed in the direction of placing responsibility on the individual rather than on the community and a large number considering promiscuity not sinful. (authors)

Meaning and Behavior: An Empirical Study in Sociolinguistics*

meanings or concrete meanings change more readily in response to behavioral changes than do abstract meanings-or both.

The Effect of Context on Stereotype Traits

Summary To test the hypothesis that the context of a stereotype label has an effect on the connotations attached to the adjectives associated with that label, but not on other adjectives, three groups of 26 university students rated, on semantic differential scales, 12 adjectives from the Negro stereotype in the context of one of three labels: Negro, American, and without a label. The adjectives rated in the appropriate context, Negro, were significantly closer together in semantic differential space than the adjectives rated in the other two contexts. A second study investigated the observation that the same adjectives take on different connotations when applied to Jews than when applied to Americans. Three groups of university students rated adjectives from the stereotype of the Jew in the contexts of one of three labels: Jew, American, and without a label. The adjectives in contexts of Jew and American were significantly closer together in semantic differential space than the third context, but were no...

Sex Attitudes and the Fear of Venereal Disease Among College Students

Several codes, either promiscuity or abstinence, are clearly linked with the veneral disease rate. At the present time, there are certain changes occurring in the moral code of our society. The typical attitude toward sexual behavior in America has been puritanical and derived from the Victorian concept of sexuality so closely linked to the rise of industrialism and urbanism. Under these conditions, sexual behavior was a public as well as a private issue. As a concomitant of the changing sexual code there appears to be a change for the worse in the venereal disease rate. Illustrative of these changes are the comparative venereal disease rates for the last two decades. Venereal disease rates fell from a high of 358.2 per 100,000 population in 1950 to a low of 197.8 per 100,000 in 1958 (American Social Health Association). Since that time the rates have been steadily on the increase. During the last two years in particular public awareness of the increased proportions of the problem has begun to be manifest. In 1965 the total venereal disease rate was 223.5 per 100,000 population (American Social Health Association). This increase has been marked particularly by a drop in the age range wherein the contraction of the disease occurs. The most recent figures from the Department of Health of the State of Georgia, the state where the present study was conducted, show that over 50% of the reported cases were below the age of twenty-five and even more disturbing over 29% of the cases were below the age of twenty (Morgan, 1964). As a consequence of these two changes in society and its problem, the present investigation, as part of a larger study on sexual attitudes of college students, attempted to determine the role that fear of venereal disease plays in preventing coitus.

Predictions of Ethical Risk Taking by Psychopathic and Non-Psychopathic Criminals

The Behavior Prediction Scale is a questionnaire by which a respondents sensitivity to the following components of the ethical-risk situation might be measured: expectancy that gain will result from the unethical act, the magnitude of that gain, the likelihood of punishment, and the severity of punishment. When 15 psychopathic and 15 non-psychopathic prisoners were contrasted, only the psychopaths were sensitive to the expectation of gain. Neither group was sensitive to either the magnitude of gain or the likelihood of punishment; both were sensitive to the magnitude of punishment, however. These results differ markedly from the finding that “normal” populations exhibit sensitivity to all of these components.

Nursing home resources and rural and urban needs.

The findings from a study of a sample of 148 nursing care homes in the state of Georgia suggest, contrary to expectations, that nursing care homes have more adequate personnel and facilities in rural than in urban areas. This finding is explained by the fact that more medical care nursing homes are owned by medical doctors and are more likely to be located in rural rather than urban areas. It is suggested that a reciprocally satisfactory arrangement can be made between a rural community in need of a doctor and a doctor wishing to own a nursing home. Under such an arrangement a combined hospital-medical care home can be corporately owned by the community and the medical doctor, thus assuring the availability of professional medical help for the community and financial inducement to the medical doctor.

Fichter's Typology and Changing Meanings in the Catholic Church

Change is viewed as a process of evolving meanings. Fichters 1954 typology of Roman Catholic parishioners is examined in light of this view. Data were collected in a non-traditional Roman Catholic parish, after the changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council. The typological criteria which Fichter found to clearly distinguish parishioners in stable, traditional parishes are now found to be confused, or even reversed in some cases. Thus it is suggested that the structural criterion for typing parishioners, degree of religious participation, remains useful. On the other hand, the specific meaning content which Fitcher found attached to the different degrees of participation no longer necessarily holds. It is further suggested that the typology be raised to a higher level of conceptualization, valid over time, space, and type of organization. Using level of participation as the criterion, and allowing for meaning change, any organizations members can be classified as nuclear, modal, marginal, or dormant.