ALCOHOL AND VIOLENT PORNOGRAPHY - RESPONSES TO PERMISSIVE AND NONPERMISSIVE CUES

Both alcohol consumption and violent pornography have been implicated independently in the commission of sexual aggression. In addition to a lcohol consumption, the presence of alcohol in the context of violent pornography may act as a permissive cue to influence judgments of such material's acceptability and self-reported likelihood of engaging in sexually violent behavior. To test this proposition, an experiment whi ch varied beverage condition (alcohol vs no alcohol), expectancy set ( expect vs do not expect alcohol) and a permissive (presence of alcohol ) vs nonpermissive (absence of alcohol) cue was conducted on both male and female subjects. Secondary analyses on mile subjects alone invest igated the role of the personality trait hypermasculinity in affecting judgments. Results showed that (1) alcohol itself rather than expecta ncy set influenced judgments and willingness to engage in sexual viole nce; (2) the presence of alcohol interacted with alcohol consumption t o affect willingness to engage in sexual violence; (3) men high in hyp ermasculinity judged the violent pornographic story more positively th an did men low in this trait; and (4) alcohol interacted with hypermas culinity to affect acceptability judgments, but only for men low on th is trait. These findings are consistent with cognitive disruption mode ls and show promise for future investigations of the influence of perm issive cues, as well as the role of hypermasculinity.