Sexy online self‐presentation on social network sites and the willingness to engage in sexting: A comparison of gender and age

Abstract

The present study investigated whether engaging in sexy self-presentations on social network sites (SNSs) or exposure to sexy self-presentations on SNSs predicts the willingness to engage in sexting. A second aim of the present study was to investigate whether adolescent girls demonstrate stronger relationships between (exposure to) sexy online self-presentations on SNSs and willingness to sext than adolescent boys and young adult men and women. A two-wave panel survey among 953 Dutch adolescents (13-17 years old, 50.7% male) and 899 Dutch young adults (18-25 years old, 43.9% male) showed that engaging in sexy self-presentations on SNSs increased the willingness to engage in sexting, but only among adolescent girls. Exposure to sexy self-presentations of others did not predict the willingness to engage in sexting. The findings call for more research on the role of gender and age in the link between sexy self-presentation and sexting.

Gender roles on social networking sites: investigating reciprocal relationships between Dutch adolescents’ hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity and sexy online self-presentations

“…At the same time, self-report measures have been successfully used in many previous studies on antecedents and consequences of adolescents' social media use (e.g., Barker, 2009;de Vries et al, 2016;Gross, 2004), including sexy self-presentation (e.g., Baumgartner et al, 2015). Moreover, the self-report measures of (exposure to) sexy self-presentations used in the present study have shown good construct validity, as they have been associated with other types of sexual media use (e.g., reality TV, Vandenbosch et al, 2015) and sexual attitudes (e.g., instrumental attitudes toward sex and notions of women as sex objects, van Oosten et al, 2015a) in previous studies using the same data-set and in a recent study using a different sample (van Oosten & Vandenbosch, 2017). Similarly, our self-report measure of hypergender orientation is based on validated self-report scales for hyperfemininity and hypermasculinity among adults (Mosher & Sirkin, 1984;Murnen & Byrne, 1991).…”

“…Thus, the more adolescents, female or male, endorse a hypergender orientation, the more likely they are to engage in sexy self-presentation or to look at others' sexy selfpresentation. It should be noted that a recent study did not find a difference between adolescent boys and girls in their engagement in sexy self-presentation, and found that boys exposed themselves to the sexy self-presentations of others more than girls (van Oosten & Vandenbosch, 2017). Previous research thus suggests that the role of gender, in the sense of biological sex, in research on the frequency, predictors, and consequences of young people's (self-) sexualization is lacking or inconsistent.…”

“…SNSs users were, subsequently, asked to report the extent to which during the past six months they had uploaded pictures portraying themselves (a) with a sexy gaze, (b) with a sexy appearance, (c) scantily dressed (e.g., bathing suit or underwear), and (d) in a sexy posture. The items were based on previous research on the characteristics of young people's sexy self-presentations (e.g., Crescenzi et al, 2013;Hall et al, 2012;Moreno et al, 2009;Peluchette & Karl, 2009), conform other research on sexy self-presentation and adolescents' sexual attitudes and media use (e.g., van Oosten & Vandenbosch, 2017;Vandenbosch, van Oosten, & Peter, 2015). The frequency to which SNSs users had engaged in these four behaviors was reported on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = never to 7 = always).…”

Predicting the Willingness to Engage in Non-Consensual Forwarding of Sexts: The Role of Pornography and Instrumental Notions of Sex

“…The willingness to engage in NCFS is a much more subtle measure which is often used for sexual risk behavior and can thus be expected to be more suitable for measuring antisocial behaviors such as NCFS. Moreover, a focus on behavioral willingness fits in a body of research on risk behavior based on the prototype-willingness model (e.g., Gerrard et al, 2008), and the role of media herein (e.g., Boot, Peter, & van Oosten, 2016;Dal Cin et al, 2009;van Oosten, Peter, & Vandenbosch, 2017;.…”

Adverse Impacts of Social Networking Sites on Academic Result: Investigation, Cause Identification and Solution

“…At the same time, today, particularly in students, adverse effects are becoming greater. Social media's dark side involves decreasing academic achievement [4,5], increasing anxiety [6], cyberbullying [7,8], addictive behaviour [9], deprivation of sleep [10], sexting [11] and much more, which are major concerns. It is obvious that Social Medias are designed to be addictive as much as possible for financial gain.…”