Master's Theses

Department

Psychology

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Abstract

Males and females differ in their defensive responses to verbal stimuli that are most directly sexually suggestive. 200 subjects were administered Byrne's Revised Repression-Sensitization Scale creating a normative distribution, in which only the upper and lower 27% of the sample (106 subjects) (repressers and sensitizers) were administered the Galbriath Word Association Test. It was hypothesized that females as a group would behave as "repressers”, exhibit shorter latencies and respond to sexually suggestive words with neutral or nonthreatening interpretations. Males as a group were hypothesized to behave as "sensitizers", exhibit longer response latencies and respond to sexually suggestive words with conflict-laden and emotional content. Responses were analyzed using one-way analysis of variances and a CRF 2,2 analysis of variance. Results indicate that males and females are dichotomized on the R-5 scale with males responding as "sensitizers" and females as "repressers" (p < .05). Females responded to sexually suggestive stimuli with neutral or nonthreatening interpretations and males with conflict-laden and emotional content (p < .01). Differences in latencies were not evidenced; this is probably due to the nature of the Word Association Test, in that, it did not produce enough anxiety in which to measure defensiveness in regard to latencies. The major hypothesis that males and females have different defensive reactions as measured on the R-S scale was supported.

Keywords

Psychology

Advisor

James Ryabik

Date of Award

Spring 1976

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Rights

© The Author(s)

Comments

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