A lexical analysis of human sexuality: Examining the psychological structure and developing an empirical measure of individual differences in sexual description.

This dissertation explores the lexical nature of human sexuality description. Traditional lexical approaches to studying individual differences have neglected the sexuality lexicon. Consequently, there exist four important gaps in our knowledge of the psychology of sexuality description: (1) What is the psychological structure of sexuality self-description, (2) Does this structure persist across different rating contexts, (3) Can a psychometrically sound measure of self-description be created using the sexuality lexicon, and (4) Can such a measure contribute to the science of sexuality? Using several samples of undergraduates and a dating couples study, I addressed each of these gaps in turn. First, I found that nine dimensions of individual differences exist within the sexuality lexicon--Sexiness, Fidelity, Obscenity, Love, Abstinence, Lust, Femininity, Masculinity, and Sexual Orientation--most of which are largely independent of the traditional five-factor model of individual differences. Second, although the psychological structure of sexuality description became less complex as familiarity with the target decreased, the nine dimensions of self-description were stable across the sexes and reliable across all contexts. Third, the psychometric examination of the nine factor scales suggested that they were sufficiently valid assessments of their targeted latent constructs. Fourth, a lexical measure of sexuality could contribute to the science of sexuality, particularly if it addresses the issues of item meaning across individuals and the relevance of relationships to sexuality self-description.PhDPsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/104858/1/9610233.pdfDescription of 9610233.pdf : Restricted to UM users only