Sexuality Attitudes Reassessment (SAR): Historical and New Considerations for Measuring its Effectiveness

Abstract

In recent years, leading scholars in the field of sexology have been calling for more professionals who are primarily sexologists rather than professionals in other fields who specialize in sexuality. Such professionals require specialized training that meets their specific needs. The Sexuality Attitude Reassessment (SAR) has been established as a routine training intervention for sexuality professionals. The SAR has been used to train American sexologists and other helping professionals to be sensitive to sexual diversity and the sexual behavior of others. Attempts have been made to measure the SAR's effectiveness using several different measures and the research has yielded inconsistent and contradictory results. These measures traditionally look for changes in knowledge and attitudes. The authors of this work posit that a new construct must be developed to measure the success of the SAR as a method of sensitivity training. The proposed construct, sexological worldview, is demonstrated to be a more pertinent construct than attitude change.

“The Pleasure Is Better as I’ve Gotten Older”: Sexual Health, Sexuality, and Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Older Women Living With HIV

“…Derived from a sexological approach to education (Edwards & Coleman, 2004; Rosser et al, 1995; Sitron & Dyson, 2009), this model targets key components of “healthy” human sexuality that include (but are not limited to): a basic knowledge and understanding of sexual functioning; a recognition of how certain life challenges can impede sexual health; and the need for intimacy and sexual aspects of relationships (e.g., desire, arousal, and pleasure); and the promotion of sexual health care that includes safer sex practices. Proponents of the model argue that sexual literacy allows individuals to create strategies to reduce risk in their relationships and sex practices (Robinson et al, 2002).…”

Validation of Sexological Worldview

“…As a result of this study, we argue that the proposed construct is valid for the following three reasons: (a) It is grounded in the literature on worldview as demonstrated in our previous work (Sitron & Dyson, 2009) and meets the needs for a new construct for the framing of affective training for sexologists, (b) it has been vetted by experts in the field and revised according to their comments, and (c) data collected using interviews with individuals about their perspective, or worldview, regarding sexuality support the key components of the definition:…”

“…Much research has been done to study the effects of such training programs without much success (see Sitron & Dyson, 2009), yet they still remain as requirements for certification or credentialing as a sex therapist, sex counselor, and/or sex educator. As we argued, perhaps it is because past training programs have measured specific attitude change, rather than measuring the sensitivity of one's worldview to others with differing worldviews.…”

“…In 2009, we called for the development of a new construct to measure the effectiveness of the Sexuality Attitudes Reassessment (SAR), a modality for the training of sexologists in both the awareness and sensitivity toward diverse sexual expression (Sitron & Dyson, 2009). Supported by the literature discussing perspective transformation (e.g., Mezirow, 2000;Perry, 1970), worldview (e.g., Ibrahim, 1991;Ibrahim & Kahn, 1987;Koltko-Rivera, 2004;Sarason, 1984;Watts, 1994), and sensitivity to cultural and individual difference found in the literature of counseling, education, and psychology (e.g., Brown, 2004;Horner & Vandersluis, 1981;Ibrahim, 1991;Lehman, 1993), we argued for the measurement of an individual's sexological worldview development.…”

“…• Ten respondents between 18 and 35 years, 10 between 36 and 50 years, and 10 between 51 and 65 years at time of interview • Minimum of 10 respondents who identify their race as something other than White/Caucasian • Minimum of 10 respondents who identify themselves as religious, spiritual, belonging to or having belonged to a faith community, family, or other social system • Minimum of 10 respondents who identify themselves as one or more of the following: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or other nonmale/nonfemale gender identity, intersex, sexual minority, person who experiences a paraphilia, as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text revision; DSM-IV-TR; American Psychological Association, 2000) 1 • Minimum of 10 respondents who identify as heterosexual and either male or female • Ten respondents who were new students or persons expressing interest in studying in Widener University's Human Sexuality Graduate Program • Ten respondents who were current students of Widener University's Human Sexuality Graduate Program • Ten respondents who were practicing as sexuality professionals at the time of interview, 5 five of whom have AASECT certification • Ten respondents who will have participated in a SAR training program (as it is defined in Sitron &Dyson, 2009, andStayton, 1998).…”