NCJ Number
170549
Journal
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Volume: 34 Issue: 4 Dated: (November 1997) Pages: 443-473
Date Published
1997
Length
31 pages
Annotation
An experimental study tested the assumption of rational choice models that individuals who are in an unaroused status can anticipate their responses to visceral feelings such as anger or sexual arousal.
Abstract
The research involved an experiment in which sexually aroused and nonaroused males predicted their own behavior in a scenario involving date rape. The participants were male undergraduate students from the University of Maryland. The 80 students were randomly assigned to three groups. One group was exposed to sexually arousing material before reading the scenarios, one was exposed to sexually neutral materials before reading the scenarios, and one group was exposed to the sexually arousing materials but read and reacted to the scenarios a day later. All participants answered a set of questions intended to measure their perceptions of the costs and benefits of acting in a sexually aggressive manner, their level of arousal, and a probabilistic prediction as to how aggressively they would act in the conditions described in the scenario. Results revealed that sexual arousal increased the participants' expectations of their own sexual aggressiveness and that this impact was not mediated by their perceptions of the costs or benefits of such aggression. Figures, tables, notes, appended instrument, and 59 references (Author abstract modified)