BIASED TERMINOLOGY EFFECTS AND BIASED INFORMATION-PROCESSING IN RESEARCH ON ADULT-NONADULT SEXUAL INTERACTIONS - AN EMPIRICAL-INVESTIGATION

Adult-child and adult-adolescent sexual interactions have generally be en described in the professional literature with value-laden negative terms. Recently, a number of researchers have criticized this state of affairs, claiming that such usage is likely to have biasing effects. The current investigation examined empirically the biasing impact of n egative terminology. Eighty undergraduate students read a shortened jo urnal article that used either neutral or negative terms to describe a number of cases of sexual relationships between male adolescents and male adults-the shortened article was adapted from Tindall (1978). Add itionally, students were exposed either to descriptive information or descriptive plus long-term nonnegative outcome information. The purpos e of this manipulation was to examine whether students would process t he neutral and positive data in a biased fashion, because these data c ontradict strongly held assumptions of harm as a consequence of these contacts. Students' judgments were negatively biased by the negative t erminology. The students also exhibited evidence for biased processing of the nonnegative outcome information.