Sexually Aggressive Men's Responses to a Date Rape Analogue: Alcohol as a Disinhibiting Cue

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 1998 by Jeffrey A. Bernat, Karen S. Calhoun, Stephanie Stolp

Alcohol consumption has been implicated as a significant factor in the commission of sexual violence. Previous research has linked alcohol to sexual aggression in dating situations, with more than half of such instances involving either the male perpetrator or the female victim being under the influence (e.g., Abbey, 1991; Harrington & Leitenberg, 1994; Miller & Marshall, 1987). In a comparison study of college students on sexually coercive and noncoercive dates, Muehelenhard and Linton (1987) found that coercive dates were more likely to involve heavy alcohol consumption by the perpetrator and the victim. Likewise, in a national study of sexual aggression and victimization among college students, Koss, Gidycz, and Wisniewski (1987) found that 74% of perpetrators and 55% of victims of rape had been drinking alcohol prior to the incident.

Though numerous studies have documented the relationship between alcohol consumption and sexual aggression, fewer empirical studies have been conducted in this area (Seto & Barbaree, 1995). Attributional research has demonstrated that college men and women attribute less responsibility for sexual aggression to male offenders and more responsibility to female victims when vignette characters are portrayed as drunk (e.g., Richardson & Campbell, 1982). In one study, Norris and Cubbins (1992) had male and female college students read a vignette of a date ending in rape. The authors found that men and women were more likely to view the sexually aggressive episode as consensual when the characters were portrayed as drinking alcohol than when they were described as sober. Shively (1995) had college students read date rape vignettes and manipulated, among other factors, the vignette characters' level of alcohol consumption. Shively found men and women judged the male character as significantly more likely to continue his sexual advances when he was described as drinking heavily than when he was described as not drinking. In another study, Norris and Kerr (1993) demonstrated that the presence of character alcohol consumption in the context of violent pornography acted as a permissive cue for men's acceptance of forced sexual behavior and increased self-reported likelihood of engaging in similar behavior. Collectively, these studies suggest that alcohol consumption may mitigate the responsibility of blame for date rape and serve as a disinhibiting cue for men to behave in a sexually aggressive manner.

While situational factors, such as alcohol consumption, may increase the likelihood of sexual aggression, most researchers contend that sexual aggression is a multidetermined phenomenon, resulting from a convergence of dispositional, cognitive, and situational factors (e.g., Craig, 1990; Malamuth, Sockloskie, Koss, & Tanaka, 1991). Descriptive studies show that compared to their less aggressive peers, sexually aggressive men typically view relationships with women as hostile and adversarial, have a more promiscuous and impersonal orientation toward sex (Malamuth, Linz, Heavy, & Acker, 1995), and show greater arousal to depictions of forced intercourse (Bernat, 1997; Lohr, Adams, & Davis, 1997). Social information processing and judgments of sexual interactions are further influenced by aggressive men's rape supportive cognitions (e.g., Bernat, Wilson, & Calhoun, 1997). For example, in a laboratory study, Malamuth and Brown (1994) investigated three explanations of why sexually aggressive men misperceive women's communications, concluding that aggressive men are guided by a suspicious schema in their interactions with women which causes them to mistrust and/or dismiss women's reactions, especially when they are strong or indicative of negative emotion. In the sexual arena, this suspicious schema may bias sexually aggressive men's perceptions that women are dishonest or do not tell the truth when it comes to sex, and this non-veridical communication style is perceived to be typical of women in general. Accordingly, women's verbal refusal cues ("no" responses) are discounted and/or interpreted as seductive teasing rather than honest communication, resulting in persistent unwanted sexual advances (Malamuth & Brown, 1994).

Indirect corroborating evidence for a suspicious schema explanation during sexual decision-making was revealed through the findings of Bernat, Wilson and Calhoun (in press). Employing an innovative decision-latency paradigm (Marx & Gross, 1995), they asked sexually aggressive and nonaggressive college men to listen to an audio tape simulation of a date rape, during which initial sexual contact was consensual and cues of the man's force and the woman's nonconsent increased over time. Participants were instructed to press a button if and when they believed that the man in the vignette should refrain from making further sexual advances. To minimize curiosity about the outcome, participants also were instructed that the tape would continue until the interaction was completed. Sexually aggressive men who reported a cognitive style that distrusted women and justified interpersonal violence (i.e., calloused sexual beliefs) took significantly longer to stop the date rape than either sexually aggressive men without this rape supportive cognitive set or nonaggressive men, who did not differ significantly on decision-making. Laboratory judgments also corresponded with naturalistic decisions as the sexually aggressive group was nearly 3 1/2 times more likely than the nonaggressive group to delay stopping the tape until it reached intervals containing verbal threats and forced intercourse within the scenario. Although this study did not manipulate character alcohol consumption per se, it suggests that dispositional and cognitive factors, such as sexual aggression history and rape supportive cognitions, are important determinants of judgments and decisions in sexual encounters.