Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 7, 2026

Enactive Phenomenological Approach to the Trier Social Stress Test: A Mixed Methods Point of View
Published on: January 7, 2019
Understanding sadomasochism: an empirical examination of four perspectives
Patricia A Cross1, Kim Matheson
1Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada. patriciacross@hotmail.com
Abstract:
Three studies assessed current understandings of sadomasochism (SM). In Study 1 questionnaires testing four academic views of SM were administered to individuals who self-defined as involved in SM. The psychoanalytic, psychopathology/medical model, radical feminist and escape-from-self perspectives were not supported. Study 2 examined "virtual" sadomasochism as a source of information about sadomasochists in the real life world. Cluster analyses indicated that real-life and virtual sadomasochists share unique sexual proclivities. Study 3 examined an alternative view that identifies power as the commodity of importance in SM play. Content analysis of online SM encounters indicated that both "top" and "bottom" role-players used several specific techniques to create a power differential. These studies suggest that, contrary to many academic theories, power, and not the giving and receiving of pain, is at the core of SM.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Horney's Sociocultural Approach
Criticisms of the Evolutionary Perspective
Evolutionary psychology provides one explanation for these findings, suggesting...
The Scientific Method
Relationship Formation
Understanding Love
Psychosexual Theory of Development
The Five Stages of Psychosexual Development
Freud's psychosexual...
