A new study at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says that people who have strong personal convictions, high self esteem and are empathetic toward others are more likely to have a happy sex life.
[url=http://www.livescience.com/14498-emerging-adults-empathy-sexual-health-s... to Better Sex Revealed in New Study | Emotion, Relationships & Sex Lives | LiveScience
Fri, 06/10/2011 - 13:20
#1
New Study:autonomy, empathy and self esteem for a satisfactory sex life.
I have several questions about this study. First, they're picking on college kids again and only 3200 of them but perhaps this is a preliminary study. Second, the emphasis and interpretation of oral sex seems strained. Nice to see that the researchers are expanding into older age groups though.
Other than that, I'm prepared to agree with them.
Studies conducted by universities on human behavior and response seem to usually rely on students because they are readily available subjects. I don't consider it "picking on college kids." I recall having to participate in studies as part of the psychology class that I took as an undergrad. At the end of the article it states "(researcher) Galinsky and her team are continuing to study sexual well being and satisfaction at all points of life, including in middle-age and older adults."
I agree that it seems odd that oral sex is mentioned as a specific activity more than once while other activities are not mentioned at all.
In any university there are lots of people other than college kids available.
dlb does have a point though. As early as Psych 1, undergrads are offered opportunities/credit for participating in on-campus studies. So long as the study is understood with that "grain of salt" shall we say, I don't see the harm.
SIGH - "picking on college kids" was meant humorously. Tsk!
EvilEvilKitten has valid concerns about the study. The sample size of 3200 is actually rather good, but college students are a very specific demographic that is not necessarily representative of the population as a whole. Many studies use college students due to the fact that they are relatively easy to rope into such studies and a lot of research is done at universities, where there is ready access to students, but it does pose the problem of generalizability of the results to the population as a whole. This problem is usually simply ignored.
Even if you stay within the same demographic, there's a difference between college kids and those who go to vo-tech for example and also those who do not go beyond high school. It isn't that I so much disagree with their findings - just that before they begin extanding their conclusions beyond college kids, they need to research MORE of the same age group than just college kids.
So EvilEvilKitten and Humble you think that the relationship between having a satisfactory sex life and being empathetic , autonomous and having self esteem would be different for students at Johns Hopkins than for students at Texas A&M or East Podunkia Community College? Do geography, level of education and age really effect a notable variation in the relationship between character traits and level of contentedness?
My point of contention would be with the title of the article and the introductory sentence which to my interpretation have nothing to do with the findings reported in the article. The title says "key to better sex" and the introductory sentence uses the term satisfactory sex life. What I actually got out of the article was that people who have these character traits are more likely to enjoy their sexual encounters or get greater satisfaction from the sexual encounters that they have. I believe that there are other parameters for defining a satisfactory sex life such as satisfaction with the frequency of sex, with the variety of sex, with the partner's contribution and the ability to find mutual enjoyment with a partner.
Back to empathy, autonomy and self esteem. I am not a professional sex researcher (my amateur investigations have been very entertaining) nor am I a psychologist, but in my multiple experiences with partners from different parts of the world and of varying socio-economic and educational levels I do see a correlation between the above mentioned traits and the ability to enjoy life in general.
dlb - it MAY be and it MAY NOT be. That's my point - until you research the point, you simply cannot say beyond personal anecdote. As we humans have discovered in the past usually "what everyone knows" has proven to be wrong to one degree or another. I daresay they're right but until all the evidence is in, it is best to be sceptical.
Individuality will always be a variable in psychology and human sexuality studies. (Written by one who admits to being an armchair pundit)