Social motives and cognitive power–sex associations: Predictors of aggressive sexual behavior.

Abstract

The present study investigated whether implicit social motives and cognitive power-sex associations would predict self-reports of aggressive sexual behavior. Participants wrote stories in response to Thematic Apperception Test pictures, which were scored for power and affiliation-intimacy motives. They also completed a lexical-decision priming task that provided an index of the strength of the cognitive association between the concepts of "power" and "sexuality." For men, high levels of power motivation and strong power-sex associations predicted more frequent aggression. There was also an interaction: Power motivation was unrelated to aggression for men with the weakest power-sex associations. For women, high levels of affiliation-intimacy motivation were associated with more frequent aggression. Strong power-sex associations were also predictive for women but only when affiliationintimacy motivation was high.Sexual aggression is a widespread problem with devastating consequences for both victims and society at large. In a recent ~review, Koss (1993) stated that estimates of the prevalence of rape in adult women range from 14% to 25% in most studies; 1997 statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics (Abma, Chandra, Mosher, Peterson, & Piccinino, 1997) fall within that range, with 20% of women reporting ever having been forced to have intercourse. The personal consequences to the victim of an assault are often severe (for reviews, see Koss, 1993;Koss, Heise, & Russo, 1994;and Resick, 1993). These consequences include depression (Wyatt, 1992), posttraumatic stress disorder (Solomon & Davidson, 1997), general ill health (Golding, Cooper, & George, 1997), and increased risk for suicide (Davidson, Hughes, George, & Blazer, 1996). Other forms of coercive sexuality, such as sexual Eileen L. Zurbriggen, Department of Psychology, New York University. Portions of this research were presented at the meeting of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 1998; at the 21st Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, July 1998; and at the 106th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, California, August 1998. This article is based on a portion of my doctoral dissertation, submitted to the University of Michigan, which was supported by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Individual National Research Service Award F31MH11468, a University of Michigan Rackham Dissertation/Thesis Grant, and grants from the University of Michigan Psychology Department. Preparation of the article was supported by NIMH Institutional National Research Service Award T32MH19890.I gratefully acknowledge the advice and support of my dissertation committee: Elizabeth Anderson; David Meyer; Abigail Stewart; and especially my advisor, David Winter. I also thank Ted Sturman for assistance with coding and Lauren Duncan, Rowell Huesmann, Aurora Sherman, Patrick Shrout, Eric Stone, Larissa Tiedens, and Jul...

Exploring the Automatic Undercurrents of Sexual Narcissism: Individual Differences in the Sex-Aggression Link

“…Likewise, the degree to which sex words primed the detection of power words was related to self-reported sexually coercive behavior (Zurbriggen, 2000). Parallel to these findings, we argue that the subtle priming of sexual content may have antagonistic effects on individuals, depending on whether they are high or low in SN.…”

Cross-sectional predictors of sexual assault perpetration in a community sample of single African American and Caucasian men

“…Sexual dominance was used to represent the hostility toward women path because its focus on sex as a means of exerting power over women is at the core of this concept [Malamuth et al, 1995;Wheeler et al, 2002;Zurbriggen, 2000]. Positive attitudes toward casual sexual relationships were used to represent the impersonal sex path because its focus on sex as casual pleasure, rather than part of a committed relationship, is at the center of this concept [Kanin, 1985;Malamuth et al, 1991;Wheeler et al, 2002].…”

How personalized and socialized power motivation facilitate antisocial and prosocial decision-making

“…Specifically, power motivation is related negatively to making concessions during conflict resolution (Langner & Winter, 2001) and positively to assertiveness in friendships (McAdams, Healy, & Krause, 1984), sexual aggression (Winter, 1973;Zurbriggen, 2000), extreme risk taking (McClelland & Watson, 1973), and, for US presidents, engagement in war (Winter, 1987). Although it typically has been cast in a dark shadow, some have argued that the motivation for power can drive prosocial influence as well.…”