Understanding the Dynamics Behind the Relationship Between Exposure to Negative Consequences of Risky Sex on Entertainment Television and Emerging Adults' Safe-Sex Attitudes and Intentions

Abstract

Social cognitive theory (SCT; Bandura, 1986) has established that people often are inhibited from engaging in a behavior when they observe models experience negative consequences for their actions. Thus, in the realm of sexual portrayals on television, a program that depicts consequences of risky intercourse should reduce the likelihood that a viewer would respond positively. In addition, SCT suggests that a consequence's intensity and type play a role in viewer outcomes and that it is difficult to inhibit behaviors that one has personal experience with. These assumptions were tested in this study. Results showed that emerging adults with high sexual risk experience were not influenced by television portrayals of negative consequences to risky sex. Effects of exposure were identified only among participants who did not have a high amount of sexual risk experience, such that they reported safer-sex outcomes. Outcomes differed based on the type of consequence participants were exposed to.

Notes

¹Fourteen participants (1 male, 13 female) reported that they had previously watched the television programming shown in the stimuli. These participants were excluded from all analyses, and they are not included in the total number of participants previously noted.

²Due to scheduling problems, one viewing session included a single participant.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keli Finnerty-Myers

Keli Finnerty-Myers (Ph.D., University of Arizona, 2007) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Pepperdine University. Her research interests include media effects on children and adolescents. She would like to thank Dale Kunkel for his guidance on this study.