How Peers Mediate Media Influence on Adolescents’ Sexual Attitudes and Sexual Behavior

In this study I examine a model through which I attempt to identify how peers mediate media influences on adolescent sexuality. The data for this paper came from a paper-and-pencil survey involving 213 late adolescents who were between the ages of 18 and 19. The findings show that (a) adolescents attend to sex-related media and believe that their peers attend to similar media (b) adolescents make estimates of possible media influences on their friends (c) perceptions of media influence on peer norms regarding sexual issues are positively related to adolescents own sexual permissiveness and (d) the permissive sexual attitudes of adolescents predict the possibility for adolescents to engage in sexual activities. (authors)

[1]  W. Vogel,et al.  A test of the optimal level of arousal theory of sensation seeking. , 1982, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[2]  Albert C. Gunther,et al.  Biased Optimism and the Third-Person Effect , 1993 .

[3]  J. Fisher,et al.  Understanding and promoting AIDS-preventive behavior: insights from the theory of reasoned action. , 1995, Health Psychology.

[4]  William L. Tolone,et al.  Selection of Reference Group. Perceived Reference Group Permissiveness, and Personal Permissiveness Attitudes and Behavior: A Study of Two Consecutive Panels (1967-1971; 1970-1974). , 1976 .

[5]  Ann N. Crigler.  The Psychology of Political Communication , 1996 .

[6]  T. Fisher,et al.  A scale for the comparison of the sexual attitudes of adolescents and their parents. , 1988, Journal of sex research.

[7]  A. Gunther,et al.  Congenial public, contrary press, and biased estimates of the climate of opinion. , 2001, Public opinion quarterly.

[8]  B. Whitley.  False consensus on sexual behavior among college women: Comparison of four theoretical explanations , 1998 .

[9]  A. Thornton,et al.  Religious Participation and Adolescent Sexual Behavior and Attitudes. , 1989 .

[10]  Norman Miller,et al.  Ten years of research on the false-consensus effect: an empirical and theoretical review , 1987 .

[11]  M B Oliver,et al.  Gender differences in sexuality: a meta-analysis. , 1993, Psychological bulletin.

[12]  Hubert J. O'Gorman,et al.  Pluralistic Ignorance—A Replication and Extension , 1976 .

[13]  J. Beckmann,et al.  Action control : from cognition to behavior , 1985 .

[14]  L. Gross,et al.  Aging with television: images on television drama and conceptions of social reality. , 1980, The Journal of communication.

[15]  J. Peter,et al.  Third-Person Perception of Television-Viewing Behavior. , 2000 .

[16]  Thomas J. Page,et al.  Causal modelling in nonexperimental research : an introduction to the LISREL approach , 1985, American Political Science Review.

[17]  G. Parcel,et al.  Psychosocial predictors of delay of first sexual intercourse by adolescents. , 1999, Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association.

[18]  Albert C. Gunther,et al.  Predicting Pluralistic Ignorance: The Hostile Media Perception and its Consequences , 2001 .

[19]  J. Billy,et al.  Effects of sexual activity on adolescent social and psychological development. , 1988 .

[20]  Frank J. Bernieri,et al.  Determinants of consensus estimates: Attribution, salience, and representativeness , 1982 .

[21]  J. V. Evra,et al.  Television and child development , 1990 .

[22]  Albert C. Gunther,et al.  The Persuasive Press Inference , 1998 .

[23]  Deborah A. Prentice,et al.  Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: some consequences of misperceiving the social norm. , 1993, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  D. Kinder,et al.  Political person perception: The asymmetrical influence of sentiment and choice on perceptions of presidential candidates. , 1978 .

[25]  Steven J. Sherman,et al.  Mechanisms Underlying the False Consensus Effect , 1984 .

[26]  I. Ajzen,et al.  Attitudinal and normative variables as predictors of specific behavior. , 1973 .

[27]  Albert C. Gunther,et al.  What We Think Others Think , 1991 .

[28]  Rex B. Kline,et al.  Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling , 1998 .

[29]  Steven J. Sherman,et al.  The role of the evaluation and similarity principles in the false consensus effect , 1984 .

[30]  J. Bryant,et al.  Media effects : advances in theory and research , 2002 .

[31]  Stephen R. Jorgensen,et al.  Predicting adolescent sexual and contraceptive behavior: an application and test of the Fishbein model. , 1984 .

[32]  Albert C. Gunther,et al.  Projection or Persuasive Press? Contrary Effects of Personal Opinion and Perceived News Coverage on Estimates of Public Opinion , 2002 .

[33]  L. Ross,et al.  The “false consensus effect”: An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes , 1977 .

[34]  Charles T. Salmon,et al.  THE ‘OTHER’ AS THE VULNERABLE VOTER: A STUDY OF THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT IN THE 1988 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN , 1990 .

[35]  R. Hoyle.  Structural equation modeling: concepts, issues, and applications , 1997 .

[36]  Esther Thorson,et al.  Perceived Persuasive Effects of Product Commercials and Public Service Announcements , 1992 .

[37]  L. Crocker,et al.  Introduction to Classical and Modern Test Theory , 1986 .

[38]  F. Heider.  The psychology of interpersonal relations , 1958 .

[39]  W. Davison.  The Third-Person Effect in Communication , 1983 .

[40]  M. Defleur,et al.  Theories of mass communication , 1968 .

[41]  Richard C. Sherman,et al.  Memory for persuasive messages: A test of a schema-copy-plus-tag model. , 1984 .

[42]  Jane D. Brown,et al.  Mass media influences on sexuality , 2002, Journal of sex research.

[43]  A. Gunther,et al.  The Influence of Presumed Influence , 2003 .

[44]  Alfredo Mirandé.  Reference group theory and adolescent sexual behavior. , 1968 .

[45]  William P. Eveland,et al.  Rethinking the Social Distance Corollary , 1999 .

[46]  G. L. Fox,et al.  Theories of Adolescent Heterosexual Behavior , 1987 .

[47]  M. Gillmore,et al.  Teen sexual behavior: applicability of the Theory of Reasoned Action. , 2002 .

[48]  D. Kandel.  Homophily, Selection, and Socialization in Adolescent Friendships , 1978, American Journal of Sociology.

[49]  William P. Eveland,et al.  Support for Censorship of Violent and Misogynic Rap Lyrics , 1997 .

[50]  Albert C. Gunther,et al.  The Influence of Mass Media and Other Culprits on the Projection of Personal Opinion , 2003, Commun. Res..

[51]  G. Parcel,et al.  Attitudes, Norms, and Self-Efficacy: A Model of Adolescents' HIV-Related Sexual Risk Behavior , 1992, Health education quarterly.

[52]  I. L. Reiss.  The social context of premarital sexual permissiveness , 1968 .

[53]  James M. Fields,et al.  Public Beliefs About the Beliefs of the Public , 1976 .

[54]  Karl G. Jöreskog,et al.  Lisrel 8: User's Reference Guide , 1997 .