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1st Student's Major

Psychology

1st Student's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Students' Professional Biography

My name is Jannine Ray and I attend Minnesota State University, Mankato. I graduated on May 10, 2014 and will begin coursework in the School Psychology Doctoral program in the fall. I was in born in Washington but grew up in Woodbury, Minnesota. I completed the undergraduate psychology program in three years, which were infused with research experience on Dr. Eric Sprankle’s sexual health research team. I plan on continuing research throughout my professional career. I hold an interest in studying self-development in order to advance skills and abilities, as well as in human resource aspects of psychology. Additionally, my interests lie within areas of exploring the relationships that may or may not exist between specific behaviors and different components of psychology. Shelby Afflerbach is a recent graduate of the Clinical Psychology Master's degree program at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She will continue her education as a doctorate student at Oklahoma State University. Her research interests include topics in the areas of sexual health, forensic psychology, and neuropsychology.

Mentor's Name

Eric Sprankle

Mentor's Email Address

eric.sprankle@mnsu.edu

Mentor's Department

Psychology

Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

The long-standing social stigma surrounding masturbation has led to its prohibition from being included in public school curriculum as a healthy sexual practice. Furthermore, not only is masturbation a healthy sexual practice for the individual, research has demonstrated masturbation to be helpful in treating sexual dysfunctions for couples. Therefore, if the topic of masturbation is included in comprehensive sexual education as a healthy sexual practice, it may promote sexual health among individuals both intra- and interpersonally. The present study recruited from a convenient sample from a medium sized state university in the upper Midwest. Participants completed two surveys, administered through an online data collection platform. The first survey, Attitudes Towards Masturbation, is an established measure with sound reliability and validity, which assessed the participants’ comfort and beliefs about masturbation. The second survey was created specifically for this study and assessed the type of sexual education (comprehensive versus abstinence) received at home and in formal school settings. It was predicted that participants who received positive masturbation education (at home or at school) will have more positive attitudes toward masturbation than participants who received negative or no masturbation education. The results of the study indicate that positive messages learned are not correlated with positive attitudes. However, negative messages are associated with negative attitudes towards masturbation.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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