**3. Results**

Independent sample t-tests compared sex differences in somatization, depression-anxiety, eating disorder symptoms, positive sexual awareness, sexual self-monitoring, and adaptive and avoidant coping (**Table 1**). Women scored significantly higher than men on somatization and depression-anxiety, while men scored higher than women on both sexual consciousness/assertiveness and sexual monitoring.

**Table 2** presents the correlations among somatization, depression-anxiety, eating disorder symptoms, sexual consciousness/assertiveness, sexual self-monitoring, and adaptive and avoidant coping separately by gender. For both women and men, somatization, depression-anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms were significantly positively correlated with each other. Contrary to hypotheses, however, these disorders were not significantly negatively correlated with positive sexual awareness (consciousness + assertiveness). These disorder symptoms were, on the other hand, positively correlated


#### **Table 1.**

*Means and standard deviations by gender.*


**53**

**Figure 2.**

**Figure 1.**

*Don't Objectify Me!: Sexual Self-Monitoring, Coping, and Psychological Maladjustment*

cance for depression-anxiety (Fisher's *z*-test = −2.73, *p* < 0.01).

with sexual self-monitoring for men and women, with these correlations reaching statistical significance for women. As expected, for both women and men, positive sexual awareness was significantly positively correlated with adaptive coping, while sexual self-monitoring was significantly positively correlated with avoidant coping for women. The one notable gender difference in the correlations was the higher correlations of avoidant coping with somatization, depression-anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms for women than for men, with this difference reaching statistical signifi-

The patterns of correlations suggested that avoidant coping might be significantly mediating the relationships between sexual monitoring and psychopathology particularly in women. To test this, a path analysis (**Figures 1** and **2**) was conducted that modeled positive sexual awareness and sexual self-monitoring as exogenous variables predicting adaptive and avoidant coping that, in turn, were tested as predictors of somatization, depression-anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms. Combined and separate analyses were also run for sex, with a difference chi-square calculated for the combined analyses to test for the equivalence of the estimated paths for the male versus female matrices. Mediation effects were tested using the

*Path diagram showing standardized estimates for the model testing direct and indirect pathways between positive sexual awareness, sexual monitoring, coping, and psychological maladjustment: Men. \** <sup>p</sup> *< 0.05, \*\**p *< 0.01, \*\*\**p *< 0.001.*

*Path diagram showing standardized estimates for the model testing direct and indirect pathways between positive sexual awareness, sexual monitoring, coping, and psychological maladjustment: Women. \** <sup>p</sup> *< 0.05, \*\**p *< 0.01, \*\*\**p *< 0.001.*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90997*

*a Women above the diagonal and men below the diagonal.*

*.*

*\*p < 0.05.*

*\*\*p < 0.01. \*\*\*p < 0.001.*

**Table 2.** *Correlations among variablesa*

#### *Don't Objectify Me!: Sexual Self-Monitoring, Coping, and Psychological Maladjustment DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90997*

with sexual self-monitoring for men and women, with these correlations reaching statistical significance for women. As expected, for both women and men, positive sexual awareness was significantly positively correlated with adaptive coping, while sexual self-monitoring was significantly positively correlated with avoidant coping for women. The one notable gender difference in the correlations was the higher correlations of avoidant coping with somatization, depression-anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms for women than for men, with this difference reaching statistical significance for depression-anxiety (Fisher's *z*-test = −2.73, *p* < 0.01).

The patterns of correlations suggested that avoidant coping might be significantly mediating the relationships between sexual monitoring and psychopathology particularly in women. To test this, a path analysis (**Figures 1** and **2**) was conducted that modeled positive sexual awareness and sexual self-monitoring as exogenous variables predicting adaptive and avoidant coping that, in turn, were tested as predictors of somatization, depression-anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms. Combined and separate analyses were also run for sex, with a difference chi-square calculated for the combined analyses to test for the equivalence of the estimated paths for the male versus female matrices. Mediation effects were tested using the

#### **Figure 1.**

*Psycho-Social Aspects of Human Sexuality and Ethics*

**Som. Dep.-**

*Women above the diagonal and men below the diagonal.*

*.*

**anx.**

**ED Pos.** 

Somatization 0.53\*\*\* 0.19\*\* 0.04 0.14\* 0.04 0.31\*\*\*

Eating disorder 0.30\*\* 0.31\*\*\* 0.02 0.12 −0.03 0.37\*\*\*

Adaptive coping 0.20\* 0.08 −0.03 0.32\*\*\* 0.17 0.14\*

Avoidant coping 0.18 0.14 0.28\*\* 0.04 0.13 0.38\*\*\*

**sex. aware.**

0.60\*\*\* 0.28\*\*\* 0.00 0.17\*\* −0.02 0.41\*\*\*

0.05 −0.07 0.01 0.20\*\*\* 0.15\* −0.01

0.17 0.05 0.13 0.33\*\*\* 0.08 0.19\*\*

**Sex. mon.**

**Gender** *t*

**Female Male** *M* **(***SD***)** *M* **(***SD***)**

> **Adapt. coping**

**Avoid. coping**

Independent sample t-tests compared sex differences in somatization, depression-anxiety, eating disorder symptoms, positive sexual awareness, sexual self-monitoring, and adaptive and avoidant coping (**Table 1**). Women scored significantly higher than men on somatization and depression-anxiety, while men scored higher than women on both sexual consciousness/assertiveness and sexual monitoring. **Table 2** presents the correlations among somatization, depression-anxiety, eating disorder symptoms, sexual consciousness/assertiveness, sexual self-monitoring, and adaptive and avoidant coping separately by gender. For both women and men, somatization, depression-anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms were significantly positively correlated with each other. Contrary to hypotheses, however, these disorders were not significantly negatively correlated with positive sexual awareness (consciousness + assertiveness). These disorder symptoms were, on the other hand, positively correlated

Somatization 6.37 (3.94) 3.88 (3.55) −5.71\*\* Depression-anxiety 6.29 (4.22) 5.37 (3.87) −2.02\* Eating disorder 0.89 (1.40) 0.87 (1.33) −0.14 Positive sexual awareness 13.78 (5.47) 15.22 (4.88) 2.34\* Sexual monitoring 17.50 (7.25) 19.26 (6.28) 2.26\* Adaptive coping 2.83 (0.62) 2.74 (0.67) 2.34\* Avoidant coping 1.55 (0.63) 1.60 (0.74) 2.56\*

**3. Results**

**52**

*a*

*\*p < 0.05. \*\*p < 0.01. \*\*\*p < 0.001.*

**Table 2.**

*Correlations among variablesa*

Depressionanxiety

*Means and standard deviations by gender.*

*\*p < 0.05. \*\*p < 0.001.*

**Table 1.**

Positive sexual awareness

Sexual monitoring

*Path diagram showing standardized estimates for the model testing direct and indirect pathways between positive sexual awareness, sexual monitoring, coping, and psychological maladjustment: Men. \** <sup>p</sup> *< 0.05, \*\**p *< 0.01, \*\*\**p *< 0.001.*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Path diagram showing standardized estimates for the model testing direct and indirect pathways between positive sexual awareness, sexual monitoring, coping, and psychological maladjustment: Women. \** <sup>p</sup> *< 0.05, \*\**p *< 0.01, \*\*\**p *< 0.001.*

bias corrected bootstrapping of confidence intervals option in Mplus version 5.21 [38] with maximum likelihood estimation using the covariance matrix. Missing data were handled using full information maximum likelihood.

Results of the path analyses are presented separately for the male and female estimates, as the difference chi-square for this model approached significance (χ2 = 30.267, 21 df, *p* = 0.087, CFI = 0.967, RMSEA = 0.047), and there was a theoretical reason for expecting gender differences in the pathways. It is notable, that while positive sexual awareness was significantly positively predictive of adaptive coping for men and women, sexual self-monitoring was only significantly predictive of avoidant coping in women. Controlling for sexual monitoring, avoidant coping was a significant predictor of somatization, depression-anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms for women and of eating disorder symptoms in men. The direct paths from sexual self-monitoring to psychopathology were not significant for women or men. Bootstrapped mediation analyses indicated that for men the relationships between sexual self-monitoring and psychopathology were not significantly mediated by avoidant coping (95% confidence interval: −0.010, 0.063 for somatization; −0.008, 0.060 for depression-anxiety; −0.004, 0.033 for eating disorders). In contrast, all of these mediated pathways were significant for women at the 0.01 significance level (99% confidence interval, 0.004, 0.085 for somatization; 0.011, 0.134 for depression-anxiety; 0.004, 0.037 for eating disorders). None of the indirect paths involving positive sexual awareness or adaptive coping were significant.
