Chapter 12: Sexual Orientation

Question 1

What is Kinsey’s Continuum of Sexual Orientation (1948)?

Answer 1

• 0 to 6
• exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual
• predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
• predominantly heterosexual but more than incidentally homosexual
• equally homosexual and heterosexual
• predominantly homosexual but more than incidentally heterosexual
• predominantly homosexual but incidentally heterosexual
• exclusively homosexual with no heterosexual

Question 2

What is a five-setting scale that has been shown to be a little more ‘true to life’ than Kingsey’s scale?

Answer 2

• 1990 = Always wrong = 76.4%
• not wrong at all 12.9%
• sometimes 5.8%
• almost always wrong 4.9%
• 2018 = not wrong at all = 56.6%
• always wrong 33.4%
• sometimes wrong 6.4%
• almost always wrong 3.6%

Question 3

What are the sex differences in sexual attraction for aesthetics, resources and personality across age?

Answer 3

• sexual attraction is a key driver of human mate choice and reproduction.
• females are more about emotional connection and physical build.

Question 4

What was Sigmund Freud’s view on heterosexuality?

Answer 4

• he believed it was the ‘normal’ culmination of a complex, multistage process of psychosexual development.
• he believed, included a homosexual phase in early childhood would be later forgotten.
• and if kept later in life was due to abnormal relationships within the family.

Question 5

What was the stonewall rebellion in 1969?

Answer 5

• the American gay rights movement developed following WWII.

Question 6

What is verbal fluency?

Answer 6

‘In one minute, list as many words as you can that have the same meaning as ‘dark..’

Question 7

Researchers have also sought to understand sexual orientation from the perspective of development psychology.

Answer 7

• blinded participants watched home videos of homosexual and heterosexual individuals as children and rated degree of gender nonconformity.
• results: assessments of gender non-conformity in early home video corresponded with later sexual orientation, highlighting early emergence of differences.

Question 8

Is sexual orientation in women with classical or non-classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia as a function of degree of prenatal androgen excess?

Answer 8

• Androgen roles evident in previously discussed CAH
• sexual responsiveness, lifetime, as a function of CAH severity.

Question 9

What is going on in the brain with sexual orientation?

Answer 9

• the medial preoptic area of the hypothalamus. specifically, INAH3.

Question 10

What is the Blanchard, 2017 beta-analysis?

Answer 10

• while environment certainly plays a role, specific evidence is lacking.
• Blanchard suggested a link between male homosexuality and having more older brothers. still very unclear.

Question 11

In Canada what was Bill C-4?

Answer 11

it banned conversion therapy camp.
this bill defines ‘conversion therapy’ as follows:
- change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual
- change a person’s gender identity to cisgender
- change a person’s gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth
- repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior
- repress a person’s non-cisgender identity or
- repress or reduce a person’s gender expression that does not conform to the sex assigned to the person at birth.
- it also does not work and it is very harmful.

Question 12

What is the correlation between homophobia and mental health in men?

Answer 12

• despite a greater acceptance of sexual variations.
• most homophobic attitudes are based on a principle of heteronormativity and considers homosexuality to be an abnormal variant.
• homophobia can cause minority stress due to stigma and prejudice.

Question 13

What in the link between internalized homophobia and intimate partner violence?

Answer 13

• it suggests that homophobia in men may arise in part from some internal conflict and defense against same-sex attraction.
• eye-tracking data provided some similar evidence.