In the Driver's Seat: Sex Motivation
Although men and women are motivated to be sexually desirably, the biological urge for sex differs from motives such as thirst and hunger. Beginning in adolescence, sex motivates both men and women but in different ways in terms of their response pa...
In the Driver's Seat: Eating Behaviors and Disorders
With the abundance of tasty food available, it is easy to overeat, a fact complicated by our cultural fixation on thinness. The pressure to be thin, combined with other factors, leads to such eating disorders as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa....
The Role of Gender: Similarities and Differences Between Men and Women
The fact that gender is a very different experience for males and females might suggest that men and women are fundamentally very different. But according to many who study gender, this is a fallacy.
The Growing Years: Early Motor Development
As the infant's muscles and nervous systems mature, more complex skills emerge...first sitting, then standing, and walking. The brain uses the sensory feedback it receives to guide the development of movement. The age at which a baby acquires variou...
The Growing Years: Does Daycare Impair Attachment?
For many children today childcare and preschool begin at an early age. A National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study shows that most children do well in daycare as long as the quality of childcare is good to excellent. They do not...
The Role of Gender: Gender Socialization
The gender socialization process teaches children from a very early age how to differentiate between males and females. Over time, most boys and girls take on gender-related traits and incorporate them into their behavior. There has been a longst...
Emotions: Gender and Emotion
Women tend to be slightly more emotionally expressive and sensitive than men in nonverbal communication. Men are better at regulating their emotions. There is only a narrow range of emotional options considered appropriate for men. Men can express a...
Codes of Life: Temperament Studies
Temperament, or behavioral style, seems to be genetically influenced, as parents with several children will attest. Jerome Kagan highlights three areas in which researchers find temperamental biases: reaction to things that are new or unfamiliar...
People to People: Biological Precursors to Violence and Aggression
Relations between people can be marked by aggression and violence, conditions that have both biological and psychological undertones. Jean Chen Chi has conducted experiments with the MAO-A gene that when missing in males results in aggressive behavi...
Different Strokes: Gender and Racial Divide, The
Cultural traditions often prescribe gender roles and relationships between women and men, ranging from the subordination of women to relative equality. Other than the biological differences between men and women, research indicates that the psycho...