Mentor
Teresa Treat
Participation year
2017
Project title

Racial/Ethnic Differences in College Men’s Sensitivity to Women’s Sexual-Interest Cues

Abstract

Difficulty with sexual perception (ability to read a potential partner’s sexual-interest cues), more rape supportive attitudes, and high sociosexuality (preference for casual sex) have been linked to increased risk for sexual aggression. Race/ethnicity has been an established as a predictor of rape-supportive attitudes, but no work has investigated racial/ethnic differences in sexual perception. The current work examines the extent to which race/ethnicity predicts sexual perception above and beyond rape-supportive attitudes and sociosexuality. Participants included African-American/Black, Asian-American/Asian, Hispanic-American/Hispanic, and White/Caucasian college men (n = 1981).  Participants completed the Heterosocial Perception Survey – Revised, on which they judged the justifiability of a man’s continued sexual advances toward an increasingly rejecting woman. Forty-nine percent of the sample completed a rape-supportive attitudes measure, and 25% completed a sociosexuality measure. As expected, race/ethnicity predicted three elements of sexual perception: baseline justifiability (perceived justifiability of continued advances when a woman responds positive), bias (how negatively a woman must respond before perceived justifiability drops by 50%), and sensitivity (how quickly participants’ justifiability ratings decline as the woman responds more negatively). This relationship persisted after controlling for attitudes and sociosexuality. As expected, Asian men showed the highest baseline justifiability, the most bias, and the lowest sensitivity, relative to other racial/ethnic groups. Asian men also showed higher rape-supportive attitudes than other groups. Race/ethnicity did not predict sociosexuality. These results underscore the importance of addressing rape-supportive attitudes in our prevention efforts, as they are a well-established risk factor for sexual aggression that may co-vary with racial/ethnic identity.

Amani Holder
Education
Spelman College