Sex and Violence in the Movies: Empathy as a Moderator of the Exposure-Behavior Relationship in Adolescents

ABSTRACT

Sexual and violent media content is prevalent, and adolescents exposed to this content may be more likely to enact risky sexual and aggressive behaviors. According to the Differential Susceptibility Model, dispositional traits, such as empathy, can predict risky media exposure and moderate the relationship between exposure and behavior. A total of 2,424 US adolescents (ages 14–17) participated in an online study that measured exposure to sex, violence, and their co-occurrence from the same character in a list of movies content analyzed for sex and violence. The survey outcomes of interest included adolescent sexual behavior, aggressive behavior, and both behaviors together, as well as empathy, which was included as a moderator. The exposure to movie character behavior was matched to adolescents’ survey responses. Results showed that empathy was a predictor of media exposure to sex and violence in movies, and was a moderator of the exposure-behavior relationship. The exposure-behavior relationship was moderated by empathy, such that empathy had an ameliorating effect on the exposure-behavior relationship, but did not negate it completely. This study furthers our understanding of how exposure to sexual and violent content in media, combined with individual differences, may play a role in adolescent enactment of risky behaviors.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Michael Hennessey for his review and support of this manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

Authors do not have any financial interest or benefit that has arisen from the direct applications of our research.

Supplementary Material

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Additional information

Funding

This paper was made possible by Grant No. 1R21HD079615 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NICHD.