psychology – Page 28 – Warren Throckmorton

Genetic effects of gender atypical behavior and sexual orientation: A study of Finnish twins

Due to time constraints, this post is less review than description of results. However, I wanted to post something on this study in advance of some commentary coming from Michael Bailey on the topic.
Here is the reference and abstract:

Abstract: The existence of genetic effects on gender atypical behavior in childhood and sexual orientation in adulthood and the overlap between these effects were studied in a population-based sample of 3,261 Finnish twins aged 33–43 years. The participants completed items on recalled childhood behavior and on same-sex sexual interest and behavior, which were combined into a childhood gender atypical behavior and a sexual orientation variable, respectively. The phenotypic association between the two variables was stronger for men than for women. Quantitative genetic analyses showed that variation in both childhood gender atypical behavior and adult sexual orientation was partly due to genetics, with the rest being explained by nonshared environmental effects. Bivariate analyses suggested that substantial common genetic and modest common nonshared environmental correlations underlie the co-occurrence of the two variables. The results were discussed in light of previous research and possible implications for theories of gender role
development and sexual orientation.
Common Genetic Effects of Gender Atypical Behavior in Childhood
and Sexual Orientation in Adulthood: A Study of Finnish Twins
K. Alanko, P. Santtila, N. Harlaar, K. Witting, M. Varjonen, P. Jern, A. Johansson, B. von der Pahlen, & N. K. Sandnabba. Arch Sex Behavior.

The sample was obtained via a registry maintained by the Central Population Registry of Finland which includes all twin pairs born in 1971 or earlier. The researchers requested information from the twins and received responses from 36% of those surveyed (3,604). For various reasons, the authors assume representativeness of their sample, although I think they might be open to some challenge on this point given the response rate.
The authors used Zucker’s Recalled Childhood Gender Identity/Gender Role Questionaire and Sell’s Assessment of Sexual Orientation. The SASO assesses both behavior and attractions via four items:

Item 1: During the past year, on average, how often were you sexually attracted to a man (woman for female participants)? The response alternatives were: never, less than 1 time per month, 1–3 times per month, 1 time per week, 2–3 times per week, 4–6 times per week, daily. Item 2: During the past year, on average, how often did you have sexual contact with a man (woman for female participants)? The response alternatives were the same as for Item 1 above. Item 3: How many different men (women for female participants) have you had sexual contact with during the past year? Item 4: During the past year, on average, how many different men (women for female participants) have you felt sexually attracted to? The response alternatives to Items 3 and 4 were: none, 1, 2, 3–5, 6–10, 11–49, 50–99, 100C. The participants were given numerical scores so that a response of ‘‘none’’/‘‘never’’ gave a score of 0 and a response of ‘‘100 or more’’/‘‘daily’’ gave a score of 7.

Here are the correlations of twins sharing traits of sexual orientation and gender atypical behavior.
Alanko et al, table 3
Correlations were higher for identical twins than fraternal twins for both traits, especially for women. About the genetic contribution to GAB and sexual orientation, the authors said:

Significant genetic effects were found for women and men for both GAB and sexual orientation, as was our second hypothesis. The heritability estimates for childhood GAB were 51% and 29%, and for sexual orientation 45% and 50%, for women and men, respectively.

These numbers are higher than past studies and may be related to the nature of the sampling although this is not clear.
The authors also found a relationship between GAB and sexual orientation.

Our first aim was to study the phenotypic correlations between childhood GAB and adult sexual orientation. Significant correlations of moderate sizes were found, indicating that the two phenomena were related. The strength of the phenotypic association was higher for male participants, implying that childhood GAB was a stronger predictor of adult sexual orientation for men.

The authors note that these data in conjunction with past studies lead them to propose the possibility of several pathways to homosexual attractions.

There might, in other words, be different genotypes for different kinds of homosexuality. It might also be possible that the relative importance of shared environment and genetic influences vary during development. It is plausible that parents influence their children directly only as long as they live at home (Knafo et al., 2005; Plomin et al., 2001). Bailey et al. (2000) found that GAB predicted about 30% of the variance in men’s sexual orientation. As neither the phenotypic nor the genetic correlations were unity in the present sample, GAB preceded a homosexual orientation for some participants, whereas gender typicality preceded a homosexual orientation for other participants.

What did not show up was any significant role of shared environment for men. A small amount of the effect could be attributed to shared environment for women. Another data point suggesting that the pathways to adult sexual orientation are different for men and women.
Stay tuned…

Multiple pathways to sexual orientation, Part 1

On other threads, we have discussed why reparative therapy vignettes and ex-gay testimonies are so often alike. I have suggested that there are different causal pathways which lead to different sexual orientation outcomes. Also, therapists like Joe Nicolosi and Richard Cohen have strong public positions which promote a particular causal narrative. Clients who may have histories in line with those narratives seek counseling from those therapists. The same dynamic likely occurs in Exodus ministries where unhappy people seek help based on reading or hearing public testimonies.
People seeking help for unhappiness might be more likely to have life circumstances which they view as causal. Therapists looking for such causes ask questions which validate the hunches. It seems easy enough to imagine how therapists and clients can arrive at a common narrative without even trying to do so.
Same-sex attracted people who have not been traumatized in some way often react with puzzlement and frustration when, like palm readers, therapists go through a litany of questions about non-existent past trauma, seeking some confirmation of the predicted narrative. Eventually small, forgotten hurts and deprivations are identified as evidence for the expected patterns.
While I believe this occurs often, I have no idea how often. I also am pretty sure that the histories of some people are relevant to their sexual attractions. The research on the variability of pathways to sexual orientation is sparse but there is some and it demonstrates that on average same-sex attracted people who seek help of some kind (therapy or Exodus) recall more troubling relationships with parents than same-sex attracted people who have not sought therapy or ministry help.
The primary reference in this regard is Bell, Weinberg & Hammersmith (1981) Sexual preference: Its development in men and women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. An important section on the differences between clinical and nonclinical groups is reprinted here from pages 202-203.

Homosexuals in Therapy
More than half of the WHMs [white homosexual males] (58%) said that at one time or another they had sought help for a personal or emotional problem from a professional counselor such as a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Most previous studies of the development of male homosexuality have been based on the reports of homosexuals “in treatment,” and many scholars have tried to generalize their findings to other homosexuals as well. When our own findings failed to support so many widely held clinical views, we were curious to see whether the reports of respondents who had been in therapy would differ from those made by respondents who had never sought professional counseling or therapy.
What we found was that those respondents “ever in treatment” did indeed have the kinds of paternal variables in their model that were consistent with what clinicians have always thought to be typical of homosexual males. The path model of those “never in treatment,” on the other hand, either did not contain such variables or showed their influence to be weaker. For example, as the literature suggests, the “therapy” group tended to have Detached-Hostile Father (t.e.= .29), a variable that is tied to the son’s gender nonconformity and early homosexual experiences. This variable does not even appear in the model for the men who have never been in therapy, however. Moreover, although the “nontherapy” group had more Negative Relationships with their Fathers, this variable (t.e.= .11) did not influence their gender nonconformity at all. In addition, two other variables that were important for the therapy group — Cold father and Negative Image of Father — do not appear at all for the nontherapy males. Although the rest of the path model is much the same for both groups, clearly the model for the therapy group corresponds much more closely to the way fathers have been considered in theories about the etiology of male homosexuality.
How might this discrepancy be explained? On the one hand, it could be supposed that cold, detached fathers make for troubled sons who are likely to seek psychological treatment at some point in their lives. Likewise, it could be argued that “therapy” often involves an “education” of client by the therapist in which the client comes to believe what the therapist supposes must be true of the client’s parents. Alternatively, it could also be argued that fathers tend to withdraw (become detached) from psychologically troubled sons, who are later to seek psychological counseling.
Whatever the case may be, at least on the basis of what our respondents could remember about their parents, Cold or Detached-Hostile Fathers cannot be regarded as important in the development of male homosexuality in general, since their alleged influence does not even appear among those who neve sought therapy or counseling. Finally, it should be noted that the differences between the therapy and non-therapy groups do not stem from differences between these two groups in terms of effeminacy or bisexuality. We found no significant correlations between being exclusively homosexual and having been in therapy, the more effeminate WHMs were only somewhat more likely than the non-effeminate WHMs ever to have been in therapy (64% versus 54%).

Bell et al, also compared WHMs and WHTMs (white, heterosexual males) who had and had not been in therapy. The findings regarding these comparisons are not drawn out in the same manner as above. However, there is a footnote on page 202 briefly describing the analysis.

The path analysis on which these findings were based included all the white heterosexual males, whether or not they had been “in treatment.” Separate analyses, one comparing only those WHMs and WHTMs “ever in treatment” and and one comparing those WHMs and WHTMs “never in treatment” replicated the results reported above.

For women, the picture was somewhat different. The authors noted that 2/3rds of the WHW had been in therapy and then on page 209, they wrote:

We do find some differences between the path model for the women who had been in therapy and those who had not. Notably, Childhood Gender Nonconformity appears to have been a more important factor for the respondents who had been in therapy or counseling (t.e.= .71 versus .52 for the women who had never been in therapy or counseling.)
In addition, the path model for the homosexual women who had in therapy or counseling includes two variables pertaining to a sense of estrangement or unhappiness while they were growing up: Unhappiness in Adolescence (B=.14) and Felt Different from Other Girls in High School (B=.11). The path model for the nontherapy group contains no comparable measures.
Finally the path model for the women who had been in therapy or counseling includes two variables pertaining to an unhappy recollection of the mothers: Negative Relationship with Mothers (t.e. = .24) and Unpleasant Mother (t.e. = .22). The nontherapy group on the other hand, appear to have been slightly more influenced by their fathers. Their path shows significant — but weak — paths from Weak Father (t.e. = .20), Aloof Father (t.e. = .14), Controlling Father (t.e. = -.10), and Mother Dominated Father (t.e. = .14). Otherwise, the differences between the women in therapy or counseling and those with no such experience show little pattern.

In the path analysis procedure used in Bell et al’s research, the “t.e.” you see repeated throughout this passage refers to the “total effect” of one variable on another, in this case sexual preference. Think of it as a measure of the strength of effect of each variable mentioned and sexual orientation, with the larger numbers representing a larger effect. While there are many points we could discuss here, the primary reason for this series is to examine the possibility that multiple paths exist which yield the direction of sexual attractions. A practical implication is that therapists who frequently counsel those who are seeking help probably get a skewed picture of same-sex attracted people in general. Another implication is the effects noted by the reparative drive theorists are not huge and must rely on other pre- and post-natal factors. Also, those who take a solely biological perspective should expand the complexity of their model to consider that the sexual behavior of some people are influenced by certain environment experiences.
The next posts in this series will include additional research as well as more results from Bell et al. Some research does find differences between gay and straight groups on developmental recollections. What do these differences mean? Stay tuned…

Did Masters and Johnson fake the gay change cases?

Lots of stuff today…
Here is something worth looking into; a new book by Thomas Maier questions the claims of Masters and Johnson that 70% of their homosexual clients changed orientation.
John Tierney’s blog points to an article in Scientific American by Maier which summarizes the topic.

Back in 1979, on Meet The Press and countless other TV appearances, Masters and Johnson touted their book, Homosexuality in Perspective—a 14-year study of more than 300 homosexual men and women—hoping to build on their groundbreaking sex studies of heterosexuals that had helped ignite America’s sexual revolution. The results seemed impressive: Of the 67 male and female patients with “homosexual dissatisfaction,” only 14 failed in the initial two-week “conversion” or “reversion” treatment. (The 12 cases of attempted “conversion” were for men and women who had always believed they were homosexual and were troubled by it, while the 55 “reversion” cases were in people who believed their homosexuality was more fleeting.) During five years of follow-up, their success rate for both groups was better than 70 percent.
But were Masters and Johnson’s claims of “conversion” in those 12 cases — nine men and three women — even true?

This is an important question given the reputation of Masters and Johnson. Numerous conversion therapy groups have referred to their work as evidence of change (e.g., this Narth paper).
There’s more:

Prior to the book’s publication, doubts arose about the validity of their case studies. Most staffers never met any of the conversion cases during the study period of 1968 through 1977, according to research I’ve done for my new book Masters of Sex. Clinic staffer Lynn Strenkofsky, who organized patient schedules during this period, says she never dealt with any conversion cases. Marshall and Peggy Shearer, perhaps the clinic’s most experienced therapy team in the early 1970s, says they never treated homosexuals and heard virtually nothing about conversion therapy.
When the clinic’s top associate, Robert Kolodny, asked to see the files and to hear the tape-recordings of these “storybook” cases, Masters refused to show them to him. Kolodny—who had never seen any conversion cases himself—began to suspect some, if not all, of the conversion cases were not entirely true. When he pressed Masters, it became ever clearer to him that these were at best composite case studies made into single ideal narratives, and at worst they were fabricated.
Eventually Kolodny approached Virginia Johnson privately to express his alarm. She, too, held similar suspicions about Masters’ conversion theory, though publicly she supported him. The prospect of public embarrassment, of being exposed as a fraud, greatly upset Johnson, a self-educated therapist who didn’t have a college degree and depended largely on her husband’s medical expertise.
With Johnson’s approval, Kolodny spoke to their publisher about a delay, but it came too late in the process. “That was a bad book,” Johnson recalled decades later. Johnson said she favored a rewriting and revision of the whole book “to fit within the existing [medical] literature,” and feared that Bill simply didn’t know what he was talking about. At worst, she said, “Bill was being creative in those days” in the compiling of the “gay conversion” case studies.

Being creative? One member of the M&J team had no first hand knowledge of the results and wanted to back away from the claims. I would say this is a significant problem.
Maier continues:

Until he died in 2001 Masters felt confident their book would be embraced eventually by the medical community, not just by purveyors of religious or political agendas. He believed the prospect of “conversion” therapy offered more hope, more freedom to patients than psychoanalysis ever could. “The criticisms are based on old concepts,” Masters replied dismissively to the press. “We’re reporting on 10 years of work with five years of follow-up—and it works.”
But despite his claims, the success of Masters’s “gay conversion” therapy have never been proved.

It will be interesting to see if any of the patients involved step forward…

And the award for the most extreme, outrageous headline goes to…

Not anyone I have written about before…
The rhetoric is getting so outrageous that I didn’t think any more societal ills could be blamed on gays but I was wrong. But Robert Peters of Morality in Media (Can the irony get any thicker?), put out a news release just now with this headline:
“Connecting the Dots: The Link Between Gay Marriage and Mass Murders”
His news hook is the horrific shootings in Binghamton, NY where 14 people were killed, including the perpetrator of the crime. In the release, he says mass murderers and gay marriage stem from the same source – a post-Christian society. He says near the end of the release that he isn’t blaming the murders on gays:

It most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement! It is my intention to point out that the success of the sexual revolution is inversely proportional to the decline in morality; and it is the decline of morality (and the faith that so often under girds it) that is the underlying cause of our modern day epidemic of mass murders.

So why bring gays into it?
Most mass killings, as in this case, relate to mental illness, notably that involving thought disorders. His thesis is tired and in this release without a shred of substantiation. And then to use that awful situation in New York to bash gays takes it to a new level of immorality in media.
UPDATE: David Corn at Mother Jones weighs in…

Treatmentshomosexuality website open to positive experiences

Michael King, British psychiatrist and researcher, is behind a research wesbite called Treatmentshomosexuality.org.uk. The website’s purpose is stated up front:

The website is new and under development. It is about use of so-called “treatments” that aim to make homosexual people heterosexual. It arose from research funded by the Wellcome Trust from 2001 to 2004 into the oral history of such treatments in Britain since 1950.
Treatments to change a person’s sexuality are unethical and may be damaging. This is because homosexuality is NOT a disorder. Nor is there any evidence that any such “treatments” are effective. That is the reason why we collected a number of oral histories from lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people who had undergone therapy. We also collected oral histories from professionals who had developed and conducted the treatments. We wanted to know how patients had coped with the potentially damaging effects of “treatment” and whether the professionals had eventually realised the harm they were doing.
On this website you will find some of the oral histories that arose from that research. We have not put all the narratives here; rather we have included only those that show particular issues and that are the most revealing of how treatments were conducted. To read them click on the Narratives button and then on Patient Story or Professional Story. You can also read about and listen to views about such treatments on the Interviews page.
We are eager to make contact with other people around the world who may have undergone these “treatments”. Unfortunately, we are aware that many lesbian, gay and bisexual people have undergone psychotherapy, aversion behaviour therapy, or various forms of spiritual or reparative therapy, to try to become heterosexual. This may have happened to you or be happening to you now. You may even be a friend or relative of someone who has received or is receiving treatment. If so, we would like you to send us your story.
We are also eager to hear from professionals, be they doctors, psychotherapists, counsellors or psychologists, who may have undertaken these treatments at any time in their career. Please send us your accounts of giving these therapies and what you think about them now.
You can do this by contacting us with a written account, or an audio or video digital recording of your account. If it is suitable we shall edit it to ensure it is anonymous and will not cause offence to third parties. We shall then add it to the stories already on this website.
In particular, we want to hear from people living in places such as India, South America and China where much less research into these matters has been conducted.

With this tone and content on the front page, one might be surprised to learn that the research team is also interested in positive experiences in change therapy. Yesterday, Dr. King disclosed this apparent shift in response to a question from commenter Peter Ould. Ould asked, “Would you be amenable to using your website here to also post anecdotal stories of those who have had positive experiences of reparative therapy or other faith-based pastoral approaches?”
To which, Dr. King replied:

And yes, we will place positive accounts of treatments on the website. When we conducted our original oral history research, we couldn’t find any. However, we did find professionals who continued to advocate treatments and their comments were published in our papers in the British Medical Journal and on our website.

This research effort seems to be going down a similar road as did Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder. When Shidlo and Schroeder began recruiting subjects for their study of harm from reorientation, they began with the project titled: “Homophobic therapies: Documenting the damage.” They changed their focus somewhat after some people presented with stories of benefit. A similar course may be in store for this newer effort.
To be clear, I am not posting this because I favor change therapies. I think there are some people who have experienced change to varying degrees, but I also think that if you are going to research a topic, you should minimize confirmation bias to the greatest degree possible. If it was my project, I would make the website more neutral and also hold out an invitation to clients and therapists who are/were involved in sexual identity therapy.
It will be interesting to follow this project…