Movie influences on rape risk in college students

The researcher for this study investigated whether or not varying film portrayals of sexual activity would influence viewers' acceptance of interpersonal violence, beliefs that relationships between men and women are adversarial in nature, and acceptance of rape myths. Participants completed a pretest that included assessment of the acceptance of interpersonal violence, adversarial sexual beliefs, and rape myth acceptance or a placebo test containing unrelated items. They then viewed one of three film clips; one conveyed the idea that women enjoy being raped, another portrayed a realistic acquaintance rape, and the third was a film clip of mutually consenting sexual activity. After viewing one of the film clips, participants completed a posttest having items similar to the pretest. A MANCOVA (multivariate analysis of covariance) was used to test for differences in persons' acceptance of interpersonal violence, adversarial sexual beliefs, and rape myth acceptance in relation to gender, film clip, and test condition (pretest or placebo test). Males had higher adversarial sexual beliefs and rape myth acceptance than females. No differences among the responses in relation to film clip type were found. Participants who completed the pretest showed less acceptance of interpersonal violence and less acceptance of rape myths than those who completed the placebo test. Social desirability was a significant covariate for the acceptance of interpersonal violence.