Effects of violent and nonviolent sexualized media on aggression‐related thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors: A meta‐analytic review

Abstract

Women are often depicted as sex objects rather than as human beings in the media (e.g., magazines, television programs, films, and video games). Theoretically, media depictions of females as sex objects could lead to negative attitudes and even aggressive behavior toward them in the real world. Using the General Aggression Model (Anderson & Bushman, 2002) as a theoretical framework, this meta-analytic review synthesizes the literature on the effects of sexualized media (both violent and nonviolent) on aggression-related thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Our sample includes 166 independent studies involving 124,236 participants, which yielded 321 independent effects. Overall, the effects were "small" to "moderate" in size (r = .16 [.14-.18]).Significant correlations were found in experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal studies, indicating a triangulation of evidence. Effects were stronger for violent sexualized media (r = .25 [.19-.31]) than for nonviolent sexualized media (r = .15 [.13-.17]), although the effects of nonviolent sexualized media were still significant and nontrivial in size. Moreover, the effects of violent sexualized media on aggression were greater than the effects of violent non-sexualized media on aggression obtained in previous meta-analyses. Effects were similar for male and female participants, for college students and non-students, and for participants of all ages. The effects were also stable over time. Sensitivity analyses found that effects were not unduly influenced by publication bias and/or outliers. In summary, exposure to sexualized media content, especially in combination with violence, has negative effects on women, particularly on what people think about them and how aggressively they treat them.

Revisiting the Role of Pornography Use in the Confluence Model Theory of Sexual Aggression

“…Regardless of how the data were analyzed, the use of pornographic magazines was correlated with self-reported sexual aggression, and stronger linear associations were evident among men with higher predisposed risk of sexual aggression, especially with respect to HM. The total variance in self-reported sexual aggression accounted for by pornographic magazine use was moderate (9-17% in multiple regression analysis; IRRs ranged from 1.31 -1.86) and with respect to the multiple regression results, considerably larger than the reported estimate from a recent meta-analysis concerning "sexualized media" (Burnay et al, 2021). It possible that the analytical inclusion of potential confounding variables, such as sex drive (see Baer et al, 2015) would have reduced the magnitude of these effects.…”

Links of Perceived Pornography Realism with Sexual Aggression via Sexual Scripts, Sexual Behavior, and Acceptance of Sexual Coercion: A Study with German University Students

“…Third, the internal consistencies for the two parts of the script measure were just below the accepted threshold of 0.70. Furthermore, we used a broad question to assess frequency of pornography use, which did not distinguish between different types of pornographic content, such as violent vs. nonviolent or mainstream vs. feminist pornography [ 11 , 48 ]. A more fine-grained measure of the type of pornography used would enable future research to examine differential associations with sexual aggression perpetration and victimization [ 7 ].…”

“…Supporting this line of reasoning, a review found evidence that both sexually explicit material in general, and material depicting rape or physical harm in a sexual context in particular, were linked to attitudes condoning sexual violence and physical dating violence [ 47 ]. Recent meta-analytic reviews found significant links between exposure to pornography, especially violent pornography (defined as depictions of intentional attempts by individuals to inflict extreme physical harm on others, such as rape), and rape myth acceptance and normative beliefs condoning violence [ 48 , 49 ]. Moreover, greater acceptance of sexual aggression and rape myth acceptance have been linked to higher odds of both sexual aggression perpetration and victimization, as shown in recent reviews [ 50 , 51 ].…”

A Longitudinal Analysis of Political Ideology, Pornography Consumption, and Attitude Change

“… Just as the potential effect of mass media on social attitudes has been of longstanding interest to communication scholars as a group (Klapper, 1948; Schramm, 1949), so has the potential effect of pornography on sociosexual attitudes been of longstanding interest to sexological communication scholars as a subgroup (Linz & Malamuth, 1993; Wallace & Wehmer, 1971; Zillmann & Bryant, 1982). Despite this, meta-analyses aggregating findings from naturalistic pornography use studies (i.e., studies of actual, rather than experimentally induced, exposure to pornography 1 ), and sociosexual attitudes indicate that cross-sectional survey designs are far more common than longitudinal survey designs (Burnay et al, 2022; Hald et al, 2010). For instance, Tokunaga and colleagues’ (2019) recent meta-analysis of pornography consumption and impersonal sexual attitudes identified 33 cross-sectional surveys but only six longitudinal surveys.…”