Impersonal Sex Orientation and Multitasking Influence the Effect of Sexual Media Content on Involvement With a Sexual Character

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether responses to sexual media content depend on personal and situational factors. Specifically, we studied the role of the personal factor impersonal sex orientation (IS) and the situational factor multitasking in the effect of sexual media content on involvement with the character, a concept that has received increasing attention as an explanation of sexual media effects. College-aged women who were low or high in IS watched a neutral scene or a sex scene. Half of the participants in the neutral and sex condition had to multitask (a tone detection task) while viewing the scene. In the sex condition, participants high in IS were more involved with the character than participants low in IS. Multitasking resulted in opposite patterns of involvement with the character in the sex condition: Participants high in IS became less involved with the character, whereas participants low in IS became more involved with the character.

NOTE

Notes

1. The confluence model also includes hypermasculinity as a personal characteristic—that is, the tendency to derive pleasure from dominating and humiliating women. Because we focus on women's involvement with a character in sexual content, this personal characteristic is not relevant to the present study.