5 ms·

Reframing Sexting as a Positive Relationship Behavior [pdf]

35 points by galapago 11y ago

Animats 11y ago
"Leveraging a novel Internet platform (Amazon’s Mechanical Turk) to recruit heterosexual adults" ... This is another one of those low-end studies where somebody put a psych questionnaire on Mechanical Turk because it was easy. The joke in psych used to be that psychology was the study of grad students, because they were easily available for study and so many studies used them. Now it's people who have free time and few skills trying to make money on Mechanical Turk.
- Kalium 11y ago
  The joke I've heard is that college freshman are the best-studied demographic in America.
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    It's more than just a joke. UBC Researchers made a bit of a splash a while back meta-studying the studies of "WEIRD" people (http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_final02.pdf http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_fina...). > Broad claims about human psychology and behavior based on narrow samples from Western societies are regularly published. Are such species‐generalizing claims justified? This review suggests not only substantial variability in experimental results across populations in basic domains, but that standard subjects are unusual compared with the rest of the species— outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, spatial reasoning, moral reasoning, thinking‐styles, and self ‐ concepts. This suggests (1) caution in addressing questions of human nature from this slice of humanity, and (2) that understanding human psychology will require broader subject pools. We close by proposing ways to address these challenges.
- conistonwater 11y ago
  > Now it's people who have free time and few skills trying to make money on Mechanical Turk. It just might be much much worse than that [0]. It seems that people sometimes discuss questionnaires with other study participants, and that sometimes the same people, while answering different questionnaires, will end up answering the same questions over and over again, if the questionnaires overlap (as they commonly do). [0] http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/7/10/fooled-twice-shame-on-who-problems-with-mechanical-turk-stud.html http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/7/10/fooled-twice... http://andrewgelman.com/2015/08/10/dan-kahan-doesnt-trust-the-turk/ http://andrewgelman.com/2015/08/10/dan-kahan-doesnt-trust-th...
justinlardinois 11y ago
Probably off topic for Hacker News; I don't think too many people here have this kind of experience.
- herbig 11y ago
  It's insane how unfunny and ignorant this comment is.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Misleading? Satisfaction is correlated with sexting, in some demographics. Nothing about relationship quality but that.
- gertef 11y ago
  What's misleading?
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    "Positive relationship behavior". They only showed an increase in one partner's satisfaction. E.g. perhaps cheating could have caused their satisfaction to increase - would cheating then be a "Positive relationship behavior"?
neoCrimeLabs 11y ago
Wait, sexting isn't considered a positive relationship behaviour? (Edit: Assuming all parties involved are consenting adults.)
- trafficlight 11y ago
  I assume they mean to people other than your significant other?
- fweespeech 11y ago
  I know a number of folks who think sexting is: A) Weird B) Perverted C) A good way to have your sex life plastered over the internet. D) A good way for the NSA and cell phone provider to know all about your sex life.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    E) the risk of ending up on a sex offender registry for child pornography (if any of the parties are under age).
    - fweespeech 11y ago
      Well, I'm assuming anyone who is doing that is an established relationship that has lasted months/years and is 100% certain of the other party's age. I suspect the people I talk to make the same assumptions.
  - Torgo 11y ago
    C and D are unarguably true, though.
  - neoCrimeLabs 11y ago
    A) Purely subjective opinion. Actually a study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine in Sept 2014 (IIRC), sought to define what true sexual deviation was. The results found that many things considered sexual deviations in popular culture are actually not that un-common in reality. B) See A. You say this like it's a bad thing. C) The fact that this is true doesn't make it good or bad. One person's nightmare, is another's acceptable risk, is another's pleasure. D) See C. As a side note: If the NSA spends countless dollars cataloging private citizens sexual interests rather than protecting United States security, then there are much much larger issues to worry about. (And frankly, there probably are) Edited to fix typos and spelling issues.
wanderfowl 11y ago
Willingness to sext (and candor to discuss it) is probably just standing in for open and positive views on sex, and/or the presence of a vigorous and passionate sex life. Although I appreciate the evidence that the sexting isn't harmful to relationships, I think this study is basically stating "People with healthy sexual relationships often have healthy overall relationships. (p = Duh.)"
- samstave 11y ago
  >"Willingness to sext (and candor to discuss it) is probably just standing in for open and positive views on sex, and/or the presence of a vigorous and passionate sex life." Totally! Candidly; I sext a LOT. It IS a skill such as foreplay... I only mesh well with others who have the same propensity for sexting. Also - I am 40, and those with whom I sext are in my age range +/-5 years... It is not a young thing by any means. It is also not a new thing.

35 points by galapago 11y ago

"Leveraging a novel Internet platform (Amazon’s Mechanical Turk) to recruit heterosexual adults" ... This is another one of those low-end studies where somebody put a psych questionnaire on Mechanical Turk because it was easy. The joke in psych used to be that psychology was the study of grad students, because they were easily available for study and so many studies used them. Now it's people who have free time and few skills trying to make money on Mechanical Turk.

Kalium 11y ago
The joke I've heard is that college freshman are the best-studied demographic in America.
- RodericDay 11y ago
  It's more than just a joke. UBC Researchers made a bit of a splash a while back meta-studying the studies of "WEIRD" people (http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_final02.pdf http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_fina...). > Broad claims about human psychology and behavior based on narrow samples from Western societies are regularly published. Are such species‐generalizing claims justified? This review suggests not only substantial variability in experimental results across populations in basic domains, but that standard subjects are unusual compared with the rest of the species— outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, spatial reasoning, moral reasoning, thinking‐styles, and self ‐ concepts. This suggests (1) caution in addressing questions of human nature from this slice of humanity, and (2) that understanding human psychology will require broader subject pools. We close by proposing ways to address these challenges.
conistonwater 11y ago
> Now it's people who have free time and few skills trying to make money on Mechanical Turk. It just might be much much worse than that [0]. It seems that people sometimes discuss questionnaires with other study participants, and that sometimes the same people, while answering different questionnaires, will end up answering the same questions over and over again, if the questionnaires overlap (as they commonly do). [0] http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/7/10/fooled-twice-shame-on-who-problems-with-mechanical-turk-stud.html http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/7/10/fooled-twice... http://andrewgelman.com/2015/08/10/dan-kahan-doesnt-trust-the-turk/ http://andrewgelman.com/2015/08/10/dan-kahan-doesnt-trust-th...

justinlardinois 11y ago

Probably off topic for Hacker News; I don't think too many people here have this kind of experience.

herbig 11y ago
It's insane how unfunny and ignorant this comment is.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Misleading? Satisfaction is correlated with sexting, in some demographics. Nothing about relationship quality but that.

gertef 11y ago
What's misleading?
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  "Positive relationship behavior". They only showed an increase in one partner's satisfaction. E.g. perhaps cheating could have caused their satisfaction to increase - would cheating then be a "Positive relationship behavior"?

neoCrimeLabs 11y ago

Wait, sexting isn't considered a positive relationship behaviour? (Edit: Assuming all parties involved are consenting adults.)

trafficlight 11y ago
I assume they mean to people other than your significant other?
fweespeech 11y ago
I know a number of folks who think sexting is: A) Weird B) Perverted C) A good way to have your sex life plastered over the internet. D) A good way for the NSA and cell phone provider to know all about your sex life.
- ams6110 11y ago
  E) the risk of ending up on a sex offender registry for child pornography (if any of the parties are under age).
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    Well, I'm assuming anyone who is doing that is an established relationship that has lasted months/years and is 100% certain of the other party's age. I suspect the people I talk to make the same assumptions.
- Torgo 11y ago
  C and D are unarguably true, though.
- neoCrimeLabs 11y ago
  A) Purely subjective opinion. Actually a study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine in Sept 2014 (IIRC), sought to define what true sexual deviation was. The results found that many things considered sexual deviations in popular culture are actually not that un-common in reality. B) See A. You say this like it's a bad thing. C) The fact that this is true doesn't make it good or bad. One person's nightmare, is another's acceptable risk, is another's pleasure. D) See C. As a side note: If the NSA spends countless dollars cataloging private citizens sexual interests rather than protecting United States security, then there are much much larger issues to worry about. (And frankly, there probably are) Edited to fix typos and spelling issues.

wanderfowl 11y ago

Willingness to sext (and candor to discuss it) is probably just standing in for open and positive views on sex, and/or the presence of a vigorous and passionate sex life. Although I appreciate the evidence that the sexting isn't harmful to relationships, I think this study is basically stating "People with healthy sexual relationships often have healthy overall relationships. (p = Duh.)"

samstave 11y ago
>"Willingness to sext (and candor to discuss it) is probably just standing in for open and positive views on sex, and/or the presence of a vigorous and passionate sex life." Totally! Candidly; I sext a LOT. It IS a skill such as foreplay... I only mesh well with others who have the same propensity for sexting. Also - I am 40, and those with whom I sext are in my age range +/-5 years... It is not a young thing by any means. It is also not a new thing.