Disentangling Cognitions About Sexual Aggression

Abstract

We examined the extent to which evaluative attitudes toward sexual aggression are distinct from other cognitions regarding sexually aggressive behavior. Evaluative attitudes toward sexual aggression refer to the extent to which sexual aggression is viewed negatively or positively. In a secondary analysis of online survey data from 495 community men, exploratory factor analysis revealed that items from a measure of evaluative attitudes formed a distinct factor from items designed to measure cognitive distortions regarding rape. These findings suggest that evaluative attitudes may be distinct from cognitive distortions. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that evaluative attitudes explained unique variance in self-reported past sexual aggression, proclivity for sexually aggressive behavior, and likelihood to rape. If future research finds support for a causal relationship between evaluative attitudes and sexual aggression, well-established evaluative-attitude-change procedures from the social psychological literature could be adapted to address evaluative attitudes toward sexual aggression in interventions aimed at reducing sexually aggressive behavior.