<p>    </p> <p>Dysmenorrhea is the most common pain condition in reproductive-aged women and is characterized by pain during menstruation. Dysmenorrhea has far-reaching effects, such as increased psychological distress, increased relationship problems, reduced physical activity, and decreased sleep efficiency. It is the leading cause of absenteeism in this population. Though dysmenorrhea impacts many women and has such far-reaching effects, it has not been studied as extensively as other pain conditions, specifically regarding trait expectations and specific expectations. In other pain conditions, hope and optimism, the two most studied trait expectations, are protective factors for pain severity, interference, and the psychological effects of pain. Trait expectations additionally predict specific expectations, with hope predicting specific expectations related to the self, and optimism predicting specific expectations related to experiences. Both self- and experience-expectations predict outcomes, such as pain severity and pain tolerance. The current study sought to 1) examine the factor structure of specific expectations for dysmenorrhea; 2) examine the roles of trait and specific expectations in predicting dysmenorrhea; and 3) examine the roles of trait expectations and dysmenorrhea in predicting psychological adjustment. A longitudinal study of 389 menstruating women, over the age of 18, who could read and write English was conducted through CloudResearch. Confirmatory factor analysis and mixed latent- and measured-variable path analysis were used. Results indicated two distinct factors of specific expectations, pain-expectation and self- expectation. Hope predicted self-expectation, which predicted dysmenorrhea interference. Pain- expectation predicted dysmenorrhea severity and interference. Additionally, both hope and optimism predicted psychological adjustment. Dysmenorrhea interference predicted psychological distress. However, trait expectations did not predict dysmenorrhea. This study is the first to examine the associations among trait expectations, specific expectations, and dysmenorrhea and expands on the differences between dysmenorrhea and other pain conditions. </p>

Society would tell us that women have a superior sense of smell compared to men, but studies on innate olfactory ability have failed to verify these results. Perhaps women outperform men on some tests of olfactory ability due to the effect of a societal bias on perception, instead. The goal of this study was to determine if the presence of a sex-specific societal bias could affect an individual’s olfactory perception by influencing an individual to both rate an olfactory stimulus in line with the presented bias while also perceiving a noticeable difference according to the bias’s expectations. During both biased and unbiased conditions, 32 adults (women, n =16) were asked to smell and rate a set of 20 flasks all containing the same concentration of butanol. The biased scores were the same for both sexes with only the presentation of the bias changing. Participants were also asked to answer a follow-up survey tasked at determining why they rated to two conditions differently. The results showed that participants tended to rate in line with the sex-specific bias for measures of intensity. No difference for intensity scores were observed between the sexes. All 32 participants marked on the follow-up survey that they rated differently between conditions, with the majority of them indicating that they did perceive the biased condition as more intense. The results from this experiment provide support for the hypothesis that the presence of a societal bias can potentially affect how an individual perceives an olfactory stimulus. / Samhället säger oss att kvinnor har ett bättre luktsinne jämfört med män, men studier på medfödd luktförmåga har misslyckats att verifiera detta. Det är möjligt att kvinnor presterar bättre än män i vissa studier om luktförmåga på grund av fördomar som ändrar deras uppfattning om deras luktförmåga. Målet med denna studie var att avgöra om närvaron av en könsspecifik bias kunde påverka en individs luktuppfattning genom att påverka en individ att skatta en lukt i linje med en bias och samtidigt uppleva en märkvärd skillnad enligt förväntningar från biasen. Under två omgångar, en med och en utan bias, ombads 32 vuxna (kvinnor, n = 16) att lukta och skatta en samling av 20 flaskor där alla innehöll samma koncentration av n-butanol. Biasen var samma för män och kvinnor, där endast presentationen ändrades. Deltagarna ombads också fylla i en uppföljningsenkät med syftet att avgöra varför de skattade de två omgångarna olika. Resultaten visade på att deltagarna tenderade att skatta i linje med den könsspecifika biasen för skattningar av intensitet. Ingen skillnad i värden för intensitet observerades mellan könen. Alla 32 deltagare markerade på uppföljningsenkäten att de skattade olika mellan de två omgångarna, och att majoriteten indikerade att de upplevde lukterna med bias som mer intensiva. Resultaten från detta experiment ger stöd för hypotesen att närvaron av en bias potentiellt kan påverka hur en individ upplever en lukt.