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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this paper by Malamuth and Check was to investigate the relationship between viewing films which portray sexual violence against women with positive consequences and the acceptance of violence against women. It also studied the relationship between watching these films and general sexual attitudes of college age subjects.
METHODOLOGY:
An experimental design was employed using 271 male and female introductory psychology students. Students were randomly assigned to one of three groups. 1) Experimental Exposure Group: Exposure to two films which portrayed violence against women as having justification and positive consequences. 2) Control Exposure group: Exposure to two control films which had no such acts of violence. 3) Control (no exposure) group: Exposure to no films.
65 females and 50 males were exposed to films, (N=115) with an approximately equal number assigned to each exposure group. 64 males and 92 females (N=156) were assigned to the control (no exposure) group. Subjects were randomly sent to one of two theaters on campus where the experimental or control films were shown. Each of the exposure groups saw one film with many others who were not participating in the experiment, and one film with participants only. After viewing each of the movies, subjects completed a brief questionnaire concerning their background and their evaluations of the film. Subjects were told that the study was designed to develop general measures for rating movies. They were not told that the study was designed to study attitudes of sexual violence.
The movies used in the experimental conditions were "Swept Away," and "The Getaway," and were chosen because they portray violence against women as having justification and positive consequences. The two control films, "A Man and a Woman" and "Hooper," did not portray any such acts of violence. Within a week of viewing the movies, all students from the introductory psychology section were given an "attitudes survey" focusing on sexual issues. The dependent measures for acceptance of violence against women were embedded within the 104 item survey in random order: The Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence Scale (AIV) (6 items), The Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (RMA) (19 items), and the Adversarial Sexual Beliefs Scale (ASB) (9 items). Most of the items were followed by a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). A preliminary analysis was done which justified combining the non-exposed group and the "exposed to non-violent film" group into one control group. The data was analyzed using analysis of variance techniques.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The RMA, AIV, and ASB scales were analyzed using exposure (experimental vs. combined control groups), gender, and age(18 or less vs. over 18) as independent variables. These analyses yielded a significant main effect of gender in the AIV scale, (p<.001) and the RMA scale, (p<.001). Examination of the mean scores revealed that males were more accepting of rape myths, interpersonal violence, and believed more in adversarial sex relations. Interactions between exposure and gender were also obtained. These were significant for the AIV scale,(p<.03), and approached significance for the RMA scale, (p<.1). This interaction was due to greater acceptance of interpersonal violence and rape myths by males who were exposed to the violent-sexual films whereas for females the differences tended to be in the opposite direction. Simple effects follow ups showed that the difference between the experimental and control conditions for males was significant on the AIV scale (p<.01). Analysis of the data including only control subjects who viewed the control films revealed almost the same findings as those previously reported.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors stated that future research should compare the effects of explicitly sexually violent pornography with those of the types of movies used in this experiment. It was also argued that future research should also examine whether the immediate effects of exposure would by greater, equal to or less than delayed effects and should also examine the possibility suggested by feminists that messages of female subordination communicated by different sources may have summative effects in promoting a sexist ideology. The relationship between preexisting attitudes and exposure effects as well as whether such attitudes caused selective processing of the information in the films is another issue the authors discussed. Another issue to be addressed is methodological with particular attention given to the type of stimulus used, the dosage levels, the duration of effects and the relationship between specific exposures and a general social climate. Finally, the issue of gender must be addressed, since opposite results were obtained.
EVALUATION:
This study reinforces the general hypothesis that viewing sexual violence has a positive effect on acceptance of violence against women. Some of the methodological difficulties discussed by the authors--time exposure, level of sexual and violent imagery, and confounding influences--are points well taken. One of the difficulties with media research is the variation in conditions and contents of the media. The use of two control groups helps to alleviate some of this problem, but the environment was clearly not ideal for an experiment. The use of introductory psychology students at one university also contributes to a generalizability weakness--how unique are educated students between 18-22 who are learning about psychology? Despite the difficulties in this kind of research, the continuing growth of literature on how and how much media affects attitudes is reinforced by this study. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - College Student Research
KW - Viewing Violence
KW - Exposure to Violence
KW - Sexually Violent Content
KW - Desensitization
KW - Adult Female
KW - Adult Male
KW - Adult Perceptions
KW - Acceptance of Violence
KW - Sexual Assault Effects
KW - Sexual Assault Victim
KW - Female Victim
KW - Rape Effects
KW - Rape Victim
KW - Violence Against Women
KW - Film Violence
KW - Media Violence Effects
KW - Program-Film Content |