Peer modeling and college men's sexually impositional behavior in the laboratory

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 2002 by Damon Mitchell, D.J. Angelone, Richard Hirschman, Roy S. Lilly, Gordon C. Nagayama Hall

This study used a laboratory paradigm to examine the influence of peer modeling on sexually impositional behavior. Researchers have conceptualized sexually aggressive behavior as existing on a continuum of severity based on the level of imposition (Fitzgerald et al., 1988; Hall & Hirschman, 1991; Hall, Hirschman, & Oliver, 1994; Leidig, 1992; Sugarman, Aldarondo, & Boney-McCoy, 1996). At the milder but serious end of this continuum are noncontact behaviors such as sexually offensive joke telling and sexually offensive comments. Surveys have found that noncontact sexually impositional behaviors occur with an extremely high frequency on college campuses and in the workplace (Fitzgerald et al., 1988; Gutek, 1985; Shepela & Levesque, 1998) and are perceived negatively by recipients (Sandier, 1997). For purposes of this study, a mild but serious noncontact sexually impositional behavior in the laboratory was defined as a male participant showing a sexually aggressive video clip to female confederate.

The substantial literature investigating the prevalence of sexually impositional behaviors varies in degree of methodological rigor, but a high prevalence for these behaviors has been a consistent finding as have differences in rates of perpetration and victimization between males and females (Spitzberg, 1999). It has been estimated that 25% of women have experienced some form of sexual imposition by adulthood, and 25% of men have committed some form of sexual imposition (Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987; Rapaport & Burkhart, 1984). Women may be as much as four times more likely than men to be sexually victimized (Spitzberg, 1999). Perhaps as a result of these discrepancies, analogue studies of sexually impositional behavior have largely placed male participants in the role of potential offender and female confederates in the role of victim (Hall & Hirschman, 1994; Hall, Hirschman, & Oliver, 1994; Pryor, 1987; Sinclair, Lee, & Johnson, 1995).

The person X situation model of sexually impositional behavior emphasizes the following:

1. Some men may have certain person factors (e.g., personality traits, beliefs and attitudes, physiological preferences, developmental characteristics) that make them more likely to sexually impose themselves than other men.

2. Certain situational factors (e.g., use of alcohol, decreased likelihood of being apprehended) facilitate the expression of sexually impositional behaviors.

3. Sexually impositional behavior is most likely to occur when these person and situational factors co-occur (Barongan & Hall, 1995; Gutek, 1985; Hall & Hirschman, 1991; Malamuth, 1986; McKenzie-Mohr & Zanna, 1990; Muehlenhard & Linton, 1987; Pryor & Whalen, 1997; Rapaport & Burkhart, 1984; Ullman, Karabatsos, & Koss, 1999).

The various behaviors along the continuum of sexual imposition may have different person and situational factors associated with them. For example, there may be different person and situational factors associated with a supervisor who offers advancement to an employee in exchange for sexual intercourse than with a man who makes repeated sexual advances to a colleague despite repeated rejections. In a series of laboratory-based experiments of the person X situation model of sexual imposition (Pryor, 1987; Pryor, Giedd, & Williams, 1995; Pryor, LaVite, & Stoller, 1993), it was found that sexually harassing behavior was linked to dispositional proclivities and social situations that condoned such behaviors.

The role of peer modeling as a situational factor in the person X situation model can be understood within the context of social comparison theory. Social comparison theory posits that people attempt to use available social cues to assess how they should react in ambiguous situations (Festinger, 1955; Sinclair et al., 1995). As such, peer modeling and other social cues may facilitate or hinder the expression of sexual aggression in men with predisposing person factors (Pryor & Whalen, 1997). For example, a man with certain dispositional factors, such as antisocial or sadistic personality traits, that predispose him toward sexually aggressive behavior may engage in socially appropriate conversation with women in the presence of family members at home, but make lewd sexual advances toward women in the presence of sexually harassing friends at a bar. Other potentially important situational factors may be better understood through other theories and mechanisms of action. For example, the role of alcohol intoxication in sexually aggressive behavior may be due to an interaction of biological and cognitive factors, while the effects of anonymity can be understood through the process of deindividuation.

Laboratory analogue research has provided some empirical support for the inhibitory and disinhibitory role of situational factors in sexual aggression. Pryor (1987) studied men who had scored in the upper and lower quartiles of a scale assessing their likelihood to harass sexually, providing them with an opportunity to engage in sexually impositional behavior in the laboratory. Participants were assigned to teach a female confederate to putt or play poker. The putting condition required some physical contact between the participant and the confederate, and the poker condition did not require any physical contact. In the putting condition, men with high scores on the sexual harassment scale made verbal sexual overtures to the confederate and tended to touch the confederate in a more sexual way than did men with low scores on the sexual harassment scale. Neither high nor low scoring men exhibited these types of behaviors in the poker condition. The results suggest that the situational excuse for sexual contact provided by the putting condition may have acted as a disinhibitor for men with a predisposition for sexually harassing behavior, whereas the lack of contact in the poker condition may have acted as an inhibitor for men with this same disposition.