Sexting, cyber-violence and sexually risk behaviour among college students

This research explores the relationship between sexting, committing and experiencing cyber-violence, and risk sexually behaviour among college students. A total of 202 college students filled out an adjusted version of the Sex and Tech Survey Questionnaire (STSQ), the Committing and Experiencing Cyber Violence Scale (CECVS) and the subscale on sexually risk behaviour from the Youth Self-reported Delinquency and Risk Behaviours Questionnaire (SRDP-2007). It has been found that a total of 60.89% of the participants have sent a sexually explicit text message and/or video content at least once, 60.33% have received such content, and 13.12% have forwarded or shown the received content to other people. Furthermore, 3.5% of the participants have experienced, and 2.01% have committed, cyber-violence. The majority of the participants have sent explicit content to their boyfriends/girlfriends. Most of the participants perceived sexting as a kind of joke, as a gift to their partner or as an answer to receiving sexually explicit content, while a minority of the participants mentioned negative motives for practicing sexting, such as peer or partner pressure. Almost all of the participants were aware of the danger sexting bore, but most of them still indulged in sexting, noting its positive outcomes, such as the excitement that followed it. Both committing/experiencing cyber-violence and sexually risk behaviour correlate positively and moderately with sexting. Positive and moderate correlations were found between committing and experiencing cyber-violence. Also, positive but weak correlations were found between practicing/experiencing cyber-violence and sexually risk behaviour in real life. Predicting sexting by experiencing and committing cyber violence and sexually risk behaviour has shown that only sexually risk behaviour is significant predictor. Such behaviour likely serves as a mediator for the relationship between committing cyber-violence and sexting, yet it explains only 8.2% of sexting variance, while the model as a whole explains almost 20%. The results indicate that different forms of risk behaviour are correlated, and that sexting is perceived not only as a risk behaviour, but as a behaviour that can be used to facilitate committed relationships in young adulthood.

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Guilty Pleasure? Communicating Sexually Explicit Content on Dating Apps and Disillusionment with App Usage

Human Communication Research ◽

10.1093/hcr/hqz013 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 55-85

Author(s):

Sylvia Niehuis ◽

Alan Reifman ◽

Dana A Weiser ◽

Narissra M Punyanunt-Carter ◽

Jeanne Flora ◽

...

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Adverse Effects ◽

Latent Class ◽

Mechanical Turk ◽

Sexual Content ◽

Expectancy Violations ◽

Dating Apps ◽

Two Samples ◽

Sexually Explicit ◽

Explicit Content

Abstract Some people send or receive sexually explicit images or messages when using dating apps. Seeing unwanted content may produce adverse effects, consistent with expectancy violations theory (EVT), and disillusion some users. To test links between encountering sexually explicit materials and dating app disillusionment (with oneself, with others, and regret over app usage), we surveyed two samples of dating app users. Study 1 (n = 531 college students) focused on Tinder, whereas Study 2 (n = 209 Mechanical Turk workers) examined dating apps broadly. In each study, a latent class analysis sorted users into four groups, based on their dating app engagement with sexual content. Participants who rarely exchanged and did not enjoy sexual content were most regretful, as even one bad experience might have violated their expectations. Contrary to EVT, participants with high enjoyment of explicit materials felt disillusioned with themselves. Participants citing relationship-seeking purposes for app usage were highly disillusioned when heavily involved with explicit content.

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Unsolicited Pics and Sexual Scripts: Gender and Relationship Context of Compliant and Non-consensual Technology-Mediated Sexual Interactions

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.673202 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Erin Leigh Courtice ◽

Konrad Czechowski ◽

Pari-Gole Noorishad ◽

Krystelle Shaughnessy

Keyword(s):

Online Survey ◽

Romantic Partners ◽

Sexual Scripts ◽

Sexual Interaction ◽

Relationship Context ◽

Different Types ◽

Sexually Explicit ◽

Explicit Content ◽

The Relationship

Technology-mediated sexual interaction (TMSI) refers to any partnered interaction that involves sending or receiving self-created, sexually explicit content using communication technology (e. g., sexting, cybersex). Most research on TMSI assumes that experiences are desired and consensual. However, it is likely that some people do not desire all their TMSI experiences but consent to them anyways (compliance), or experience non-consensual TMSIs. People also engage in TMSIs with different types of partners. According to the traditional sexual script (TSS), other-gender attracted women and men's non-consensual TMSI experiences should differ overall and depending on the relationship context of the experience. The goal of this study was to examine the role of sexual scripts in other-gender attracted women and men's non-consensual and compliant TMSI experiences with committed romantic partners (CRPs), known non-partners (KNPs), and strangers (Ss). Women (n = 331) and men (n = 120) completed an online survey with questions about lifetime prevalence of experiencing seven types of compliant and non-consensual TMSIs in each relationship context. Results of mixed ANOVAs revealed significant interactions: overall, more participants reported compliant TMSI with CRPs. More women than men had received a non-consensual TMSI from someone they were not in a committed relationship with, and more men than women reported sending non-consensual TMSIs to a stranger. Tests of unpaired proportions suggested that the prevalence of sending and receiving non-consensual TMSIs was discordant in the KNP and S contexts: both women and men received more non-consensual TMSIs from KNPs and Ss than the other-gender reported sending. Our findings suggest that gendered sexual scripts are evident in some, but not all, aspect of other-gender attracted women and men's compliant and non-consensual TMSI experiences.

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Good Deeds Could Come From Frustrated Individuals

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631711 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Yibo Peng ◽

Jinghua Tang ◽

Hanzhou Li

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Negative Feedback ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Real Life ◽

Experimental Manipulation ◽

Altruistic Behavior ◽

Donation Behavior ◽

The Individual ◽

The Relationship ◽

Good Deeds

Frustration is often seen as negative, but as to whether it may have a positive impact on the individual is still undecided. This research was conducted to explore the influence of frustration on altruistic tendency and altruistic level in college students (17–21 years old). By presenting a highly difficult task combined with negative feedback, we effectively induced frustration in Experiment 1 (n = 70). By assessing the donation behavior of participants (n = 54) in a real-life scenario following the experimental manipulation of frustration, we examined the relationship between frustration and altruism in Experiment 2. Results showed that frustrating situations could, on some level, improve altruistic behavior [t(8.834) = 3.013, p = 0.015]. More specifically, among participants who donated, the amount donated was higher in the frustration group compared to the control (fulfillment) group; the proportion of people who donated did not differ by group.

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Moral identity: A mediation model of moral disengagement and altruistic attitude

Social Behavior and Personality An International Journal ◽

10.2224/sbp.8867 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 48 (7) ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Liheng Yang ◽

Guoying Cai ◽

Shaohong Yong ◽

Haohao Shi

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Moral Disengagement ◽

Moral Identity ◽

Real Life ◽

Altruistic Behavior ◽

Mediation Model ◽

Experiment Data ◽

The Relationship ◽

Diffusion Of Responsibility

We explored the relationships between college students' moral disengagement, moral identity, and altruistic attitude. Questionnaires assessing altruistic attitude, moral disengagement, moral identity, and real-life helping scenarios were used to survey 556 college students, of whom 130 were subsequently randomly selected to participate in an altruistic behavior experiment. Data were paired to verify consistency between altruistic behavior and attitude. The results show that moral disengagement was significantly negatively correlated with moral identity and altruistic attitude. Further, moral identity was a partial mediator of the relationship between moral disengagement and altruistic behavior, but not that between altruistic behavior and altruistic attitude. Because participants with a lower moral identity and less altruistic attitude had higher moral disengagement scores, we can conclude that the effect of diffusion of responsibility does exist.

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Situational Factors Competing for Attention

Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications ◽

10.1027/1864-1105/a000002 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 2-13 ◽

Cited By ~ 39

Author(s):

Weiyu Zhang ◽

Se-Hoon Jeong ◽

Martin Fishbein†

Keyword(s):

Task Performance ◽

Visual Information ◽

Situational Factors ◽

Sexual Content ◽

Sexually Explicit ◽

Explicit Content ◽

Audio Information

This study investigates how multitasking interacts with levels of sexually explicit content to influence an individual’s ability to recognize TV content. A 2 (multitasking vs. nonmultitasking) by 3 (low, medium, and high sexual content) between-subjects experiment was conducted. The analyses revealed that multitasking not only impaired task performance, but also decreased TV recognition. An inverted-U relationship between degree of sexually explicit content and recognition of TV content was found, but only when subjects were multitasking. In addition, multitasking interfered with subjects’ ability to recognize audio information more than their ability to recognize visual information.

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