The Science of BDSM Data, Phoenix, Arizona, 2014 (ICPSR 37395)
Version Date: Aug 26, 2019 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Ellen M. Lee, Northern Illinois University;
Brad J. Sagarin, Northern Illinois University
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37395.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
The goals of this study were to test whether participants who engaged in an extreme ritual in a naturalistic setting would evidence signs of altered states of consciousness, to examine other physiological and affective effects of the ritual, and to determine whether these effects varied based on the role the individual performed within the ritual. A multi-method approach was used that utilized various psychological self-report measures, a measure of cognitive functioning, and a measure of physiological stress. The data collection took place at the "Dance of Souls," a ritual conducted on the last day of the annual Southwest Leather Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in which participants received temporary piercings with hooks or weights attached to the piercings and danced to music provided by drummers.
The associated publication, Altered States of Consciousness during an Extreme Ritual, was used to accompany the data in this collection. Users are encouraged to consult the publication for additional information. The data collection includes one de-identified dataset with 164 variables for 83 cases. Demographic variables include sex, gender, pierced vs. non-pierced, and the role the participant played in the ceremony.
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Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
None
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Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
- For additional information on The Science of BDSM Data, Phoenix, Arizona, 2014 study, please see the The Science of BDSM website.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The goals of this study were to test whether participants engaged in an extreme ritual in a naturalistic setting would evidence signs of altered states of consciousness, to examine other physiological and affective effects of the ritual, and to determine whether these effects varied based on the role the individual performed within the ritual.
Study Design View help for Study Design
Data collection took place at the 2014 "Dance of Souls," a ritual conducted on the last day of the annual Southwest Leather Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. A mixed-methods approach was utilized where participants completed repeated measures of positive and negative affect, salivary cortisol (a hormone associated with stress), self-reported stress, sexual arousal, and intimacy; Stroop test scores were also collected. Conference attendees could enroll in the study at any point until an hour prior to the beginning of the dance. Measures were taken before the dance (baseline), during the dance, and after the dance.
Not all participants completed the materials in full during data collection and many were missing at least some data. To rectify this, three months after the conference, conference organizers sent an email to all the dance attendees with a link to an online version of the surveys. The goals were to (a) collect additional information from existing participants, (b) allow existing participants to complete any missing surveys, and (c) allow new participants to fill out the pre and post-dance surveys. If existing participants filled out a duplicate version of the pre- or post-dance survey, their responses were averaged in the dataset. It was not possible to collect Stroop and saliva samples in this manner.
Sample View help for Sample
The Dance of Souls took place in a large ballroom on the final day of the 2014 Southwest Leather Conference (SWLC), an annual four-day conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 180 people participated in the Dance of Souls. Of these, 83 enrolled in the study (49 women, 32 men, 2 transgender individuals); A total of 83 participants began the study, consisting of 47 pierced dancers, seven piercers, six piercing assistants, seven observers, three drummers, seven event/spiritual leaders, and six unknown/missing roles (e.g.,"spiritual growth journey", or missing pre- and/or post-surveys). Given the small sample sizes in some of the roles, we created one group of pierced dancers and another group of non-pierced participants. This resulted in 47 pierced participants and 36 non-pierced participants, and subsequent analyses were conducted using this role dichotomization. The six participants with unknown/missing roles were categorized as non-pierced participants. Alternate analyses that exclude these participants did not substantively change the results because many of them did not provide a full set of measures; however, we opted to include these participants in the final sample in order to retain as much power as possible.
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Universe View help for Universe
Participants of the Dance of Souls ritual, on the final day of the 2014 Southwest Leather Conference (SWLC) in Phoenix, Arizona.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
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Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Variables in the data collection include:
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
The Flow State Scale (FSS); Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS); Inclusion of Other in Self (IOS) Scale; Stroop Effect tests.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2019-08-26
Version History View help for Version History
2019-08-26 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Created variable labels and/or value labels.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
These data are freely available to data users at ICPSR member institutions. The curation and dissemination of this study are provided by the institutional members of ICPSR. How do I access ICPSR data if I am not at a member institution?