Attitudes Towards Women, Social Skills, and Verbal and Physical Coercion

Abstract

This study assessed the relationship among men's social skill, attitudes towards women, and levels of verbal and physical sexual coercion. Levels of coercion may be viewed as a continuum with voluntary sex on one end and rape on the other, with verbal coercion falling somewhere in between. Participants were 536 male undergraduates. Attitudes were assessed using the Sexist Attitudes Towards Women Scale, Sex Role Stereotyping Scale, Adversarial Sexual Beliefs Scale, Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence Scale, and the Callousness Scale, Social skills were assessed using the Survey of Heterosexual Interactions. Level of coerciveness was assessed using a modified version of the Sexual Experiences Survey. Men high in social skills had engaged in voluntary sex more often than had men low in social skills, but social skills showed no main effect for frequency of coercive sexual experiences. Callous men obtained more voluntary sexual intercourse and also obtained coercive sexual intercourse by using continual arguments, lying, and getting their dates intoxicated. Sexist men obtained sexual intercourse against the woman's will by threatening to end the relationship, using continual arguments, and using physical force. Men who accepted the use of interpersonal violence obtained sexual intercourse against the woman's will by getting their dates intoxicated, threatening to use physical force, and using physical force.