Psychology

 

Resources: DSM IV-TR (located on ERR page), Abnormal Psychology, and Case Studies in Abnormal Behavior

 

1. Create an  outline in which you address the following items:

 

•             Define the major DSM IV-TR categories of sexual and gender identity, eating, and personality disorders.

 

•             Examine the various classifications of sexual and gender identity, eating, and personality disorders.

 

•             Submit separately.

   

2. Select one of the case studies from Ch. 8, 10, or 11 located in Case Studies in Abnormal Behavior (otherwise, paper will not be accepted/graded).

 

Prepare a 700- to 1,050-word analysis of your selected case in which you address the following items:

 

•             Provide a brief overview of your selected case.

 

•             Analyze the biological, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components of the disorder from your selected case.

 •             Submit separately.  

Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.

   

The Case of Alfred Kinsey

 

Alfred C. Kinsey was born on June 23, 1894, in Hoboken, New Jersey. His parents were extremely onservative evangelical Protestants. His father was very controlling and “acted as the head of the house and as God’s spokesman to his family” (Jones, 1997, p. 14). His parents displayed very little affection toward one another and created a seemingly sexless household, leading him to question his own sexuality in adolescence and adulthood. Kinsey was very sickly throughout his childhood and felt demeaned by his father. Having always felt inadequate in the eyes of his father, Kinsey sought validation through academic achievements. He excelled in the classroom and soon became interested in the subject of biology, gaining the title of a “second Darwin” from his high school classmates. In 1912, he graduated as valedictorian of his high school. Then, at the insistence of his father, he attended the Stevens Institute of Technology in his hometown of Hoboken. After two unhappy years there, he transferred to Bowdoin College in Maine. After graduating magna cum laude with degrees in biology and psychology, he began graduate training in biology at Harvard’s Bussey Institute. As part of his issertation research, Kinsey collected and painstakingly labeled thousands of gall wasps, eventually gathering what was reputed to be the largest collection of gall wasps in the world. After earning his doctoral degree in 1919, he became an assistant professor of entomology at Indiana University in Bloomington. Soon after his move to Indiana, he met Clara McMillan, ironically a self-declared virgin. They married in 1921 and eventually had four children. She also had a constricted hymen, making sexuality at the onset of their marriage problematic. After surgery normal sexuality was available. Determined that his family life ould not replicate his own, Kinsey railed against the traditional family structure of patriarchic authority and sexual repression. He insisted on educating his children about sex, but did not limit this to talking with his children. Rather, he believed in teaching by example and often encouraged nudity in the home. As word got out about their stance on sex education, the Kinseys soon were perceived as the “authorities” in the area, although more negative terms were also used. He also often discussed explicit sexuality with his students, both in and out of the classroom. These interests let him to gather information about  others’ sex lives while on traditional biological expeditions. However, his research on sexuality did not formally begin until 1938, when he offered a noncredit “marriage course.” In conjunction with the course, Kinsey also offered “individual counseling sessions” that he used to gather information about his students’ sex lives. Although the course was an instant success, the controversy generated by the counseling and the course led the university to cancel his class.  Kinsey continued to gather information in the form of questionnaires and interviews, and he inquired well beyond the scope of what were considered “normal” sexual practices of the times. Ultimately, his goal was to “discover every single thing people did sexually” (Gathorne-Hardy, 1998, p. 182). Then, in an attempt to gain a wider array of sexual experiences, he broadened his sample by including prison inmates and homosexuals, eventually conducting as many as 18,000 interviews, apparently working on the assumption that a huge data pool would override potential sampling biases.

 

After he received his first grant in 1940, his research assistants began traveling across the country interviewing as diverse a population as possible about their sexual lives. In 1947, he opened the Institute for Sex Research on the campus of Indiana University and in 1948 published the first part of the Kinsey Reports, Sexual Behavior and the Human Male, followed by Sexual Behavior and the Human Female in 1953. Within two months of its publication, more than 200,000 copies of the “Male” volume had been sold. Both books were controversial and outraged many average Americans. Also, statisticians harshly criticized Kinsey’s sampling methods, accurately arguing that his sample was not representative of the general American population, for example, “Kinsey was not justified in generalizing his conclusions to the whole American population” (Gathorne-Hardy, 1998, p. 272). His sampling methodology also included a bizarre bias. Determined to gather as much information as possible regarding individuals’ sexual practices, Kinsey began promoting sexual activity among his research team members. Again showing flawed judgment, Kinsey filmed and photographed his students in a variety of sexual acts.

 

Allegations continue to swirl regarding Kinsey’s own sexual practices. There is a consensus that Kinsey was bisexual and also participated in masochistic sexual practices to the point that he was almost unable to experience pleasure without pain. Most striking, though, are allegations that Kinsey engaged in child sexual abuse during his data collection, specifically based on data he reported on the orgasms of pre-adolescent boys. Because the source of this information is still not clear, there are allegations that Kinsey had sexual contact with these boys. Not surprisingly, the Kinsey Institute (2007) denies this and claims that the “majority” of this information was gathered from one man who had engaged in numerous illegal sexual acts with children.