This study investigated the relationships between young women's attitudes and exposure to violence, objectification of women, and sex-role stereotypes. The research analyzed whether or not viewing sexual content or violence in music videos affected young women's current moods or changed attitudes about sexual beliefs. Music videos were selected from cable television networks and music Web sites. Sixty-six undergraduate women at a Midwest university were exposed to six music videos with violent, sexual, or neutral content. Pretests and post-tests were used to assess any change of mood or attitude after viewing music videos. Results showed no significant change in sexual beliefs for any of the three groups. The group viewing neutral videos demonstrated a significant change in mood prior to viewing the music videos between the groups. The data suggested the method of selection of participants, use of pretests and post-tests, effects of music, and desensitization to violence and sexual content may have played a role in the outcomes of the study. / Department of Journalism

African-American women are associated with having the lowest incidence of breast-feeding among ethnic groups. The purpose of this study was to examine attitudes toward infant feeding, feeding intentions, and previous breast-feeding exposure among African-American women. Leininger's Culture Care theory provided the framework. A convenience sample of 98 gravid, adult African-American women receiving care at community health centers was administered a 42-item questionnaire on infant feeding attitudes, intentions, and exposure. Findings indicated that mothers choosing breast-feeding agreed more with the benefits of breast-feeding, and were likely to have previous breastfeeding exposure. Formula feeding mothers agreed more with inconveniences of breast-feeding and advantages of formula feeding, and were more likely not to have had previous exposure. These findings suggest that providing culturally congruent education on the benefits of breast-feeding, information on skills to overcome barriers, and positive breast-feeding exposures could positively effect the incidence of breast-feeding in the African-American population. / School of Nursing

This study examines the lives of fifteen women from five families of Muncie, Indiana, women.. Each participating family has represented (in maternal decension), a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter. With one exception, all were born, raised, and are still living in Muncie, the "Middletown" of 1929, Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd's seminal study.The data determined what the persistent challenges were in the lives of these three generations of women, and what approaches they used to respond to them. Family relationships, attitudes toward women in the workplace, relationships between men and women, and an understanding and comparison of the attitudes of each generation are included in the study. Data were largely obtained by means of the ethnographic interview technique.Data indicated similar approaches to meeting challenges were used within a family, and approaches varied from family to family.A variety of approaches were used situationallyby all the women of all generations.The study supported prior research showing that religiosity strongly transfers from generation to generation. / Department of Educational Leadership

The present study examined the viability of a model of biased language use (e.g., Maass et al., 1989; Maass et al., 1996) as a measure of anti-lesbian prejudice among heterosexual women. As a matter of methodological and psychometric exploration, four alternative methods of scoring linguistic abstraction were employed.One hundred eighty-one female university undergraduates provided abstraction ratings for a series of seven fictitious news clippings, adapted from von Hippel et al. (1997), four of which depicted either heterosexual or lesbian women engaging in behaviors that were either socially favorable or unfavorable and lesbian stereotypic or counterstereotypic. Participants also completed a "Memory Test" devised for this study, a demographic questionnaire, and the ATL Subscale of the ATLG (Herek, 1988, 1994).The prediction that the linguistic expectancy bias (LEB; e.g., Maass, 1999) would be observed in the present intergroup context was not supported. The overall pattern of results suggested some stability across scoring methods. A number of implications of the findings are considered, with a focus on methodological concerns and applications to practice. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Although there are many studies that have examined explicit attitudes toward domestic violence, no studies to date have examined participants’ implicit attitudes towards this topic. The current research sought to address this absence and examined gender differences in implicit and explicit attitudes toward domestic violence. In addition, gender differences in attributions of responsibility and blame for an instance of domestic violence were examined. Participants’ implicit attitudes toward a female victim and male perpetrator of domestic violence were assessed using a modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). In addition, the Inventory of Beliefs About Wife Beating Scale (Saunders, Lynch, Grayson, & Linz, 1987) and an attribution for violence scale (Dexter, Penrod, Linz, & Saunders, 1997) were used. It was hypothesized that men would hold more negative explicit and implicit attitudes toward victims of domestic violence than women. It was next hypothesized that when compared to women, men would assign more responsibility and blame for an instance of domestic violence to the victim. It was also hypothesized that participants’ responses on the explicit and implicit attitude measures would not be correlated with one another. Results for these hypotheses were mixed. Limitations to the current research and implications for future research and practice are discussed / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2008. / In recent years, more studies are exploring how contextual factors may influence mate preferences. Based on social learning theory, power, attitudes towards egalitarian gender roles, and type of mating were expected to influence women's romantic preferences for physical attractiveness and for resources. An online questionnaire was administered to a community sample and data analyses were employed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA). Results showed that, as women's power increased, women showed increased preferences for physical attractiveness and sexiness in potential short-term mates and increased preference for intelligence in potential long-term mates. Power and attitudes were also found to be significant in predicting women's preferences for physical attractiveness relative to potential earning capacity in both short-term and long-term mating conditions. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-92). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / 92 leaves, bound 29 cm

Too many elderly women suffer rapid aging decline, frailty and hypokinetic disease simply because of inadequate levels of physical activity. While the biopsychosocial benefits of regular exercise are now well-known, explanations are lacking for the reluctance of aging Canadian females to take up, or keep up, healthful forms of leisure-time physical activity. The purpose of this study was to examine and explain the variability of participation in health-promoting form sof exercise in elderly women. Several health behavior theories and personal attributes have shown promise in explaining exercise behavior, and thus, a second purpose of the study was to test the utility of a composite theoretical model. The composite model included ten personal and situational attributes as well as five cognitive beliefs about physical activity adapted from Social Cognitive Theory and a belief about personal control over one's health from Health Locus of Control Theory. A city-wide sample of 327 Vancouver women aged 70 and 98 years filled out survey questionnaires providing information on the 16 model variables in addition to kilocalorie estimates of exercise in the past week. Multiple regression analysis was used to explain late life exercise in three stages: 1) regression on the ten personal and situational attributes; 2) regression on the six cognitive beliefs; and 3) combined regression on all the significant predictors. From the life situational variables, health, childhood movement confidence, school location, and age were significant factors explaining 18% of the variability seen in current exercise level. From the cognitive variables, current self-efficacy to exercise and current social support to engage in physical activity were the only significant predictors (R2 = 22%). A full regression model was tested by including the four statistically important situational variables and the two cognitive variables from the previous analyses. The utility of the Composite Model was supported in that both situational variables and self-referent beliefs played significant and independent roles in explaining late life exercise (R2 = 26%). The main reasons that older women were physically active were: 1) they perceived high levels of social support to exercise (b = .239, p< .01); 2) they felt efficacious for fitness-types of activities (b = .185, p< .01), 3) they had satisfactory health (b = .174, p < .01), and 4) they were educated in foreign countries (b = -.125, p < .01). Health locus of control offered some explanation but was not able to demonstrate significance alongside other cognitive beliefs (b = -.106, p < .06). Education, socioeconomic status, work role, family size, and marital status were not able to explain late life exercise. This study found that health difficulties do indeed interfere with women’s activity patterns. However, women are also influenced by perceptions of declining social support, lower levels of movement confidence, and chronological age, to reduce their physical activity. Thus, regardless of their health situation, the explanation of exercise involvement in older women rests to a large degree on the amount of social encouragement they perceive from family, friends and physicians, their self-efficacy for fitness activity, as well as perceptions of age-appropriate behavior. Older women who were educated as children outside of Canada, Britain and the U.S. appear to be culturally advantaged for late life physical activity participation. Moreover, childhood movement confidence stands as a significant predictor among the situational variables. These findings suggest that participation in physical activity, and positive beliefs about exercise in late oo, are rooted in competencies and experiences acquired in childhood. Perceptions of inadequate encouragement appear to be limiting females, from childhood on, to develop and sustain confidence in their physical abilities that would promote a more active lifestyle into their oldest life stage. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

Women, as feminist and as familist, have been in many varied ways the subjects of study. They have been studied as black women, middle-aged women, sexual women, women in poverty, women in prison, women raped, executives, celebrities, lesbians and homemakers. The classifications and combinations approached infinity. Now older women are becoming a more popular research topic, as their numbers increase with medical attainments. With the increasing participation of older “sisters” in such organizations as the National Organization for Women, and the advent of groups such as the gray panthers, it has become apparent that there are no age barriers to feminism. A series of questions led us to our topic. What will our attitudes on the issues now personally significant be in 40 years, when we have passed “retirement age?” What were women who have reached this age like when they were our age and younger? Is there a connection between their younger years and the attitudes they now possess? In pursing this final question we chose to define the “younger years” as before 25, when socialization influences one’s search of identity, development of autonomy, and development of internal criteria for self-esteem. The age chosen for our population was after the 65 the birthday, when most women are no longer working outside of the home for wages. It has been said that women who have achieved and have been rewarded for their achievements cannot accept traditional roles. Such roles do not gratify their non-nurturant, non-supportive, non-dependent, non-passive aspects of their selves. Our hypotheses were made in accordance: that a woman’s “feminism,” as measured by our scale, would be directly related to her achievement in school and work, her leadership or participation in religious activities, politics, and sports. In addition to the above objectives, we wanted to seek a relationship between the woman’s feminism scores and other aspects of her family background, her inter-relationships with boys, and her opportunities to travel. We approached these issues without hypotheses, but with great receptivity and interest.

A discussion of offensiveness in advertising is the initial focus of this research. A review of the offensiveness, irritation, nudity, and sexual suggestiveness in advertising literature suggested that females report somewhat high arousal scores when viewing nudity but that the arousal may not necessarily be positive. The measure of contributing variables to offendedness responses was proposed using various degrees of nudity in existing advertising as the primary stimuli.

A case study approach was employed to investigate the expectations families in poverty had for their children's early childhood education program. Questions explored included the purpose of early childhood education, the needs of young children, the association of early childhood education to formal schooling, and families' aspirations for their children. Four women whose children or grandchildren were enrolled in an urban early childhood program and considered at risk because of poverty participated. Qualitative methods were used including analysis of interviews and families' photographs of representations of childhood, as well as the researcher's participant observations at the early childhood program. Results indicated that the women had mainstream aspirations for the children, including going to college. Analysis revealed that the women were insightful in regard to the development of children, to appropriate ways of learning for young children, and to the needs of young children. It was also apparent that the women understood the need for and desired a shared role between families and teachers in their children's development. The participants expect early childhood programs to not only prepare young children for school but to prepare them to successfully negotiate social interactions with both children and adults. The need for young children to be outside of the home was an unexpected theme of this research. The results also indicated that the women felt that childhood was a special time of life, free from anxiety, but a time to also form a secure base from which they could take risks in the world. The present study addresses myths that families in poverty do not understand the needs of young children, are not concerned with their futures, and have low expectations for their children. This study has implications for the preparation of teachers. Preservice teachers need opportunities for personal reflection regarding their assumptions about families. The development of initiatives that would allow low income families to reveal their expectations for their children's early childhood education is also implied. / Department of Elementary Education