1 / 78

Toward an Understanding of the Media’s Influence on Adolescent Sexual Behavior

Toward an Understanding of the Media’s Influence on Adolescent Sexual Behavior. Martin Fishbein, Annenberg Public Policy Center University of Pennsylvania. This research is supported by NICHD Grant Number: 5R01HD044136. the Sex and Media Research Group Amy Jordan Amy Bleakley

tanya-oconnor
Download Presentation

Toward an Understanding of the Media’s Influence on Adolescent Sexual Behavior

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Toward an Understanding of the Media’s Influence on Adolescent Sexual Behavior Martin Fishbein, Annenberg Public Policy Center University of Pennsylvania This research is supported by NICHD Grant Number: 5R01HD044136

  2. the Sex and Media Research Group Amy Jordan Amy Bleakley Michael Hennessy Jennifer Manganello Suzanne Martin Srividya Ramasubramanian Vani Henderson Ariel Chernin Nicole Trentacoste Robin Stevens Nadine Gabbadon Shawnika Hull Sehoon Jeong Weiyu Zhang Chol-joo Lee Shonna Kydd Peter Busse

  3. Pope Slams ‘Detrimental’ Media Portrayal of Sex Reuters, Sat. Jan 24, 2004 Pope John Paul attacked television on Saturday for its light-hearted portrayal of sex and said positive images in the media of homosexuality and contraception were bad for society.

  4. Conventional wisdom There is too much sex in the media. 90% of American parents feel that movies and TV contribute to teens having sex* Teens learn about sex from the media. 23% of teens say they have learned ‘a lot’ about pregnancy and birth control from TV shows and movies* *Strasburger & Wilson, 2002

  5. Mass Media May Prompt Kids to Try Sex: Study By Kathleen DohenyHealthDay Reporter MONDAY, April 3 (HealthDay News) -- Exposure to sexual content not only in movies and TV but also in music and magazines speeds up the sexual activity of white teens, increasing their chances of early intercourse, a new study contends. White teens in the top fifth of the "sexual media" diet when 12 to 14 years of age were more than twice as likely to have had intercourse by age 14 to 16, compared to those ranking in the lowest fifth. The same finding did not hold true for black teens. Brown's team found other factors were more likely to predict whether they would have early intercourse, such as parental disapproval of teen sex.

  6. updated 10:53 a.m. EST, Mon November 3, 2008 Study links sexual content on TV to teen pregnancy Next Article in Health » By Elizabeth LandauCNN (CNN) -- Sexual content on television is strongly associated with teen pregnancy, a new study from the RAND Corporation shows.

  7. We recognized that adolescents don’t live in a single medium environment, and we argued that looking at exposure to sexual content in a single medium would not provide insight into the extent to which (or how) the media impact on sexual behavior.

  8. Thus we considered teen exposure to movies, television, magazines, video games, music, and the internet.

  9. Five year NICHD Grant to explore the impact of the media environment on adolescents’ sexual behavior. Conducted two years of formative research: Developed measures of media use Developed measures of Sexual Content Developed “objective” and “subjective” measures of exposure to sexual content Developed measures of sexual behavior Developed measures of the psychosocial determinants of sexual behavior Sex and Media Study

  10. Next, a three year longitudinal study. Start with 14 to 16 year olds Baseline, 12 Months, 24 months At each time period, assess: Media Exposure Exposure to Sexual Content Psychosocial Determinants of Sexual Behavior Sexual Behavior Sex and Media Study

  11. Initial Sample: Adolescents aged 14-16 were recruited through ads in a local paper to participate in a study of the impact of the media on adolescent sexual development. Those who responded to the ad had to send in parental consent and youth assent forms before being given a password to take a computer based survey. N=547 adolescents aged 14 (33%), 15 (34%), and 16 (33%) 60% Female 29% have ever had sex: 28% of the boys and 29% of the girls 38% intend to have sex in the next year

  12. There were several problems that had to be resolved before we could even attempt to link exposure to sexual content in the media to adolescent sexual behavior.

  13. How to measure exposure to sex content in multiple media How to measure adolescent sexual behavior How to identify the psychosocial determinants of sexual behavior

  14. The Integrative Model of Behavior Change Identifying the psychosocial determinants of sexual behavior External Variables Past Behavior Demographics Behavioral and Culture Environmental Beliefs and Attitudes Outcome Factors Knowledge Evaluations Attitudes Towards Targets (stereotypes Injunctive and stigma) and Normative Intentions Behavior Descriptive Personality, pressure Normative Moods, and Beliefs Emotions Other Individual Difference Control Self Variables Skills and Beliefs and (perceived Efficacy Perceived Abilities risk) (PBC) Power Intervention or Media Exposure 14

  15. .66 Behavioral Attitude Beliefs .60 (.54) .49 .59 (.35) 0.71 .52 (.59) 0.33 Normative Pressure Intention Behavior Beliefs .45(.15) .42 .29 (-.04) Self Efficacy Self Efficacy Beliefs Psychosocial Variables at Time 2 Predicting Behavior at Time 3

  16. Measuring Adolescent Sexual Behavior – The AdolescentSex Scale M F Loevinger’s H 0.75 0.81 KR20 0.84 0.85 Deep kissing (item: Have you ever participated in deep kissing (some people call this “French kissing”)?), Touching the breasts of a female partner / the respondent having their breasts touched genital touching of the respondent by a partner the respondent receiving oral sex having vaginal sexual intercourse the respondent giving oral sex the respondent receiving anal sex / the respondent giving anal sex

  17. Developing Valid Measures of Exposure to Sexual Content in Single and Multiple Media Mean unweighted exposure Mean weighted exposure Proportional Favorite titles Unweighted summed exposure Weighted summed exposure

  18. Predictive Validity of Cross Media Measures of Exposure to Sexual Content Unweighted exposure 0.13** Weighted exposure 0.18** Proportional 0.13** Favorite titles 0.12** Unweighted summed exposure 0.19** Weighted summed exposure 0.21**

  19. Predictive Validity -- Weighted summed exposure Scores Television 0.13** Music Artists 0.17** Magazines 0.16** Video Games 0.11* Cross Media 0.21*

  20. 20

  21. 21

  22. The Cross-Sectional Association of Exposure and Sexual Behavior Age N r p 14 167 0.26 <.05 15 330 0.18 <.05 16 490 0.15 <.05 17 319 0.10 ns 18 148 0.11 ns

  23. While we are obviously most interested in whether exposure to sexual content influences sexual behavior, it should be recognized that in order to influence behavior, media exposure must first influence the determinants of behavior.

  24. 24

  25. Table 2: Seemingly Unrelated Regression Results for Sources of Sexual Information on Behavioral Beliefs (N = 442). “How did you learn about sexual intercourse in your life?” Breusch-Pagan test of independence for belief outcomes: 2 (6)=388.555, P<.00; *P<=.05, **P<=.01 25

  26. Table 3: Seemingly Unrelated Regression Results for Sources of Sexual Information on Normative (N = 443) and Self-efficacyBeliefs (N = 437) Breusch-Pagan test of independence for normative outcomes: 2 (3) =115.114, P<.00; *P<=.05, **P<=.01 26

  27. Impact of the Media on Underlying Beliefs – The Full Model

  28. So why are our results so low, given the strong significant findings of Jane Brown’s group and Becky Collin’s group?

  29. Black Teens White Teens Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 SMD 0.18b 0.05 0.05 0.39c 0.25c 0.21c Model R2 0.13 0.36 0.39 0.19 0.38 0.42 SMD increment to R2 0.03b 0.00 0.00 0.11c 0.04c 0.03c N 411 411 380 413 413 393 Model 1: Age, Male, Receives free lunch, parent education, early puberty Model 2: + Baseline sexual behavior Model 3: + good relationship with mother, hands on parenting, parental disapproval of teen sex, high religiosity, frequent religious attendance, school connectedness, good grades, permissive peer sexual norms b: p<.01; c: p<.001

  30. Study Links Sex On TV Shows To Teen Pregnancies by Allison Aubrey NPR.org, November 3, 2008 Bivariate Analyses Predicting Pregnancy After Baseline Among Youths Who Ever Had Sex (N=718) Baseline Predictors βP Exposure to sex on television 0.18 .280

  31. Are we making a mountain out of a molehill or is conventional wisdom correct? Is there something to “worry” about???

  32. The Cross-Sectional Association of Exposure and Sexual Behavior Age N r p 14 167 0.26 <.05 15 330 0.18 <.05 16 490 0.15 <.05 17 319 0.10 ns 18 148 0.11 ns

  33. Romantic Relationship Scale – M F Loevinger’s H .69 .75 KR20 .80 .82 You liked someone romantically You thought of yourself as a couple You exchanged gifts You declared love for one another You currently have a romantic partner You have met the parents of your romantic partner

  34. Pre Coital Sex Scale – M F Loevinger’s H .88 .92 KR20 .91 .91 Hugged Held Hands Kissed Cuddled with Touched over clothes Touched Breasts Touched Private Parts Saw Naked Was Naked with Him/Her

  35. Intentions to Seek, Seeking, and Relationship and PreCoital Behaviors Is---Seek Seek---Relation Relat---Sex Is---Relation Is---Sex Seek---Sex Total .78 .20 .68 .14 .33 .33 13-14 .72 .41 .60 .25 .38 .37 15-18 .80 .15 .65 .11 .31 .32 What’s missing are the links between Seeking and Exposure, Exposure and Relationships, and Exposure and PreCoital Behaviors.

  36. Th . . . Th . . . Th . . . That’s All Folks

  37. Hennessy, M., Bleakley, A., Fishbein, M., & Jordan, A., (2008). Validating an Adolescent Sexual Behavior Index Using Psychosocial Theory and Social Trait Correlates. AIDS and Behavior, 12(2), 321-331.

  38. Bleakley,A., Fishbein,M., Hennessy,M., Jordan,A., Chernin,A., & Stevens,R., Developing Respondent Based Multi-Media Measures of Exposure to Sexual Content. Communication Methods and Measures, 2(1–2), 43-64.

  39. Hennessy, M., Bleakley, A., Fishbein, M. & Jordan, A. (In press). Estimating the Longitudinal Association Between Adolescent Sexual Behavior and Exposure to Sexual Media Content. Journal of Sex Research

  40. Bleakley, A., Hennessy, M., Fishbein, M. & Jordan, A. (2009). How Sources of Sexual Information Relate to Adolescents’ Beliefs about Sex. American Journal of Health Behavior, 33(1), 37-48.

  41. BLEAKLEY, A., HENNESSY, M., FISHBEIN, M. and JORDAN, A. (2008). It Works Both Ways: The Relationship Between Exposure to Sexual Content in the Media and Adolescent Sexual Behavior. Media Psychology, 11:1–19

  42. It Works Both Ways 47

  43. Hypothesis 48

  44. Background The nature of the relationship between exposure to sexual content in the media and adolescent sexual behavior is ambiguous. Recent studies provide empirical support for a causal effect of sex content exposure on behavior (i.e., early sexual initiation and advancement of precoital activity).* *See Brown et al., 2006; Martino et al., 2006; Collins et al., 2004 49 49

  45. Background However, it is plausible that the relationship is reciprocal (i.e., simultaneous, non-recursive, bi-directional) because.... Sexually active youth or those interested in sex may selectively expose themselves to more sexual content in the media and this exposure may, in turn, result in sexual activity. 50 50

More Related