psycology questions

Homework: Investigating Rape Culture

DIRECTIONS: After reading the pdf article posted on BB entitled “Why is Fraternity Membership Associated with Sexual Assault? Exploring the Roles of Conformity to Masculine Norms, Pressure to Uphold Masculinity, and Objectification of Women” you will be asked to answer the following questions. This assignment is due by 6 pm on Wednesday, December 9th. PLEASE NOTE THAT IS ALSO THE DUE DATE FOR ANY EXTRA CREDIT ASSIGNMENTS, AS IT IS THE FINAL DATE FOR CLASS. LATE ASSIGNMENTS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Please email as a word document attachment your typed responses to the following questions:

• Identify AT LEAST TWO FACTORS according to the authors that increase the likelihood for sexual assault against women among members of fraternities.
• What was the sample for this study?
• Why are “all-male organizations” like fraternities more vulnerable to endorsing violence against women? How does this relate to constructions of masculinity we discussed in class?
• What is a “sexual script”? How is it related to conformity?
• How is sexual assault or violence against women associated with objectification of women?
• What would be an example of the “bonding rituals” the researchers write about that men may engage in that objectify women that fraternity members in particular would do?
• Why was it significant that these researchers included “sexual deception” as an additional variable that may have impacted the relationship between fraternity membership and sexual violence? Why hasn’t this variable been studied in the past?
• What is the relationship between consent regarding sexual interactions and sexual deception, as described by the researchers?
• Can you apply at least one construct activated in social settings, like social comparison theory, social identity theory, conformity, stereotypical gender socialization, diffusion of responsibility and/or deindividuation to the types of behaviors the researchers identified fraternity members oftentimes engage in (or in other words, if you were to use social comparison theory, how might engaging in this psychological process be related to a fraternity member sexually assaulting a female?). This is an opportunity to apply one of these concepts we discussed earlier in class specifically to sexual violence as described by the researchers as perpetrated by fraternity members.
• What are some potential ways to prevent the types of violence reported by this study?

engaging in risky behaviors, and prioritizing work and/or money(Mahalik et al., 2003).However, manhood is not an inherent consequence of beingborn male. Instead, to “be a man” requires displaying traditionalmasculine behaviors. The precarious manhood thesis (Vandello &Bosson, 2013) refers to the idea that manhood is a status that mustbe achieved and can be lost at any time. Because heterosexual sexis a defining aspect of masculinity, it offers men a way to achievemanhood. Men who have several sexual partners are lauded as“real men,” whereas men who fail to uphold traditional masculinenorms are bullied (Toomey, Card, & Casper, 2014), and their verymanhood is called into question (Vandello & Bosson, 2013). As aresult, there is a great deal of pressure on men to have (heterosex-ual) sex to prove that they are “real men.” Such displays ofmasculinity are done to impress other men, because manhoood isa status that is bestowed on menonlyby other men (Vandello &Bosson, 2013). Therefore, membership in all-male organizationsmay create extra pressure on men to assert their masculinity.AnthropologistPeggy Sanday (2007)and sociologistMichaelKimmel (2008)theorize that men in all-male organizations aremore inclined to engage in sexual violence against women to asserttheir heterosexuality and, therefore, their status as men.Fraternity Membership and Sexual ViolenceConsistent with Sanday and Kimmel’s hypotheses, previousresearch demonstrates that all-male organizations, such as frater-nities, tend to establish cultures that endorse violence againstwomen (e.g.,Murnen & Kohlman, 2007). Several studies onfraternity members’ attitudes toward sexual violence have focusedon endorsement of rape myths (e.g., women say no when theyreally mean yes; women fantasize about being raped;Bleecker &Murnen, 2005;McMahon, 2010). A meta analysis revealed amoderate effect size (d.31) for the association between frater-nity membership and rape myth acceptance (Murnen & Kohlman,2007). Studies also show relations between fraternity membershipand acceptance of violence against women, more generally. Forexample, in their study of undergraduate men,Corprew and Mitch-ell (2014)found that fraternity members exhibited more sexuallyaggressive attitudes toward women than did nonmembers.In addition to greater acceptance of sexual violence, fraternitymembership is associated with actual perpetration of sexual ag-gression (Boeringer et al., 1991;Brown et al., 2002;Foubert,Newberry, & Tatum, 2007;Koss & Gaines, 1993;Lackie & deMan, 1997;Murnen & Kohlman, 2007). In their study of first-yearundergraduate men,Foubert and colleagues (2007)found that menwho joined a fraternity were three times more likely to commitsexual assault than men who did not join a fraternity. In general,belonging to a fraternity is associated with greater perpetration ofsexual aggression (Brown et al., 2002) and nonphysical sexualcoercion (Boeringer et al., 1991).Fraternity Membership and Endorsement ofMasculine Gender NormsFraternity members likely experience a great deal of pressurefrom their male peers to engage in masculine norms, and especiallyto have heterosexual sex. Having sex with several different womenis a way for fraternity men to gain respect from their peers, andmembers who fail to have sex are often teased (Sanday, 2007).Indeed, fraternity members report greater peer pressure to have sex(Franklin et al., 2012;Kingree & Thompson, 2013) and greaterpeer approval of forced sex (Kingree & Thompson, 2013) than dononmembers.Sweeney (2014)refers to the pressure men feel to assert theirmasculinity and specifically their heterosexuality as “compelledmasculinity” and notes that it often takes the form of objectifica-tion of women (i.e., viewing women as an object that exists forsexual pleasure, rather than as a human with thoughts and feelings;Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997;Martin & Hummer, 1989;Ray &Rosow, 2010;Sweeney, 2014). Research suggests that fraternitymembers are more likely to objectify women than nonmembers.For example,Bleecker and Murnen (2005)analyzed the décor inmale students’ dorm rooms and found that fraternity members hadsignificantly more objectifying and degrading images of women(e.g.,Playboypin-up posters) displayed on their walls than non-fraternity men. Additionally,Martin and Hummer (1989)docu-mented that the promise of having access to women is used as“bait” to attract new fraternity members. Ethnographies and inter-views with fraternity members reveal that members assign pointvalues to women based on their attractiveness. Brothers earn pointsby sleeping with women, and compete with one another for whocan earn the most points (Sanday, 2007;Sweeney, 2014). Takentogether, this research suggests that women serve as objects onwhich fraternity men can assert their heterosexuality (Sanday,1996).In addition to feeling pressure to uphold masculine norms,including the objectification of women, fraternity membership isassociated with greater endorsement and enactment of these norms(Iwamoto, Corbin, Lejuez, & MacPherson, 2014;Kalof & Cargill,1991;Robinson, Gibson-Beverly, & Schwartz, 2004). Scholarsargue that men in fraternities have a narrow definition of mascu-linity that includes rejecting anything perceived as feminine, aswell as being able to “score” with women, drinking large amountsof alcohol, being “tough,” and having money (Martin & Hummer,1989;Rhoads, 1995). These characteristics map on to traditionalmasculine gender roles such as risk taking (Mahalik et al., 2003)and onto traditional sexual scripts, such as prioritizing sex (Kim etal., 2007). Among college men, membership in a fraternity isassociated with greater conformity to masculine norms (Iwamotoet al., 2014). Moreover, fraternity members endorse gender ste-reotypes and gender roles more strongly than sorority members(Kalof & Cargill, 1991;Robinson et al., 2004), suggesting that theassociation between fraternity membership and masculinity isunique to fraternity membership, rather than participation in Greeklife more generally.Masculine Gender Norms and Sexual ViolenceEndorsement of traditional gender norms may partially explainwhy fraternity members tend to be more accepting of sexualviolence because two prominent pillars of masculinity are demon-strating power over women and engaging in aggression (Mahaliket al., 2003). There is empirical evidence that traditional mascu-linity is associated with acceptance of sexual violence (Corprew &Mitchell, 2014;Eaton & Matamala, 2014;Lutz-Zois, Moler, &Brown, 2015). For example, among college students, endorsementof traditional masculinity is related to stronger endorsement ofThis document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.4SEABROOK, WARD, AND GIACCARDI

rape myths (Lutz-Zois et al., 2015), and endorsement of heteron-ormative beliefs (e.g., men should be dominant; men are alwaysafter sex) is associated with greater acceptance of verbal sexualcoercion (Eaton & Matamala, 2014).Studies of masculinity and sexual violence perpetration findpositive associations, as well (Lackie & de Man, 1997;Murnen,Wright, & Kaluzny, 2002;Thompson, Swartout, & Koss, 2013).Indeed, a meta analysis of masculine ideology and sexual aggres-sion found that out of 11 different measures of masculinity, all butone showed a significant effect size in predicting perpetration ofsexual aggression (Murnen et al., 2002); the effect sizes werelarger for hypermasculinity than for general measures of endorse-ment of gender norms. A more recent longitudinal study of collegemen found that higher levels of hostile masculinity (i.e., desire tocontrol women and a general distrust of women;Malamuth, Sock-loskie, Koss, & Tanaka, 1991) throughout college predicted per-petration of sexual aggression (Thompson et al., 2013).Because masculinity is a performance done by men for othermen (Vandello & Bosson, 2013), the presence of male peers likelyplaces increased pressure on men to uphold masculine stereotypes,such as engaging in sex. The pressure from one’s peers to “be aman” by having several sexual partners may contribute to theperpetration of sexual violence. For example, a longitudinal studyof fraternity membership (Kingree & Thompson, 2013) revealedthat fraternity members reported more approval from their friendsto engage in forced sex (e.g., use drugs and alcohol to convince awoman to have sex); peer approval of forced sex, in turn, predictedgreater perpetration of sexual violence. Another study found thatfraternity membership was related to perpetration of sexual assaultbecause fraternity members reported greater peer pressure to en-gage in sex, and this pressure predicted perpetration of sexualassault (Franklin et al., 2012). In their ethnographic study of partyculture on college campuses,Armstrong, Hamilton, and Sweeney(2008)suggest that “social pressure to ‘have fun,’ prove one’ssocial competency, or adhere to traditional gender expectations arealso predicted to increase rates of sexual assault within a socialscene” (p. 495). Together, these studies lend support to the ideathat men in fraternities experience pressure from other men toengage in heterosexual sex to prove their masculinity, and that thispressure to engage in sex contributes to perpetration of sexualassault.Finally, objectification of women is theorized to contribute tosexual violence against women because objectified women areperceived cognitively to be less like people and more like objects,thus devoid of feelings or humanity (Fredrickson & Roberts,1997). Despite the theoretical link, few studies have examined theassociations between men’s objectification of women and theirattitudes toward and perpetration of sexual violence. Those thathave find that objectification of women is associated with greateracceptance and perpetration of sexual violence (Aubrey, Hopper,& Mbure, 2011;Gervais, DiLillo, & McChargue, 2014;Jacques-Tiura et al., 2015;Rudman & Mescher, 2012). For example, menwho implicitly associated women with objects were more likely toreport sexually aggressive attitudes toward women (Rudman &Mescher, 2012). Men who had perpetrated sexual aggression in thepast year generated more objectifying statements about womenand were more comfortable with their friends’ objectifying state-ments about women, as compared with nonperpetrators (Jacques-Tiura et al., 2015). Together, these results suggest that men’sobjectification of women is related to acceptance of sexual vio-lence; however, no studies have examined this link in a fraternitycontext. More generally, pressure to engage in masculine norms isassociated with sexual violence and may also help explain the linkbetween fraternity membership and acceptance of sexual violence.Summary and PurposeAlthough research demonstrates that fraternity membership isassociated with acceptance of traditional masculine gender norms,and endorsement of masculine gender norms is associated withacceptance of sexual violence, few studies have examined whethertraditional masculine gender norms and pressure to uphold themmediate the relation between fraternity membership and accep-tance of sexual violence. Further, despite evidence that fraternitymembership is associated with the objectification of women, andthat objectification is associated with acceptance of sexual vio-lence, no studies have examined objectification of women as themechanism by which fraternity membership is associated withacceptance of sexual violence. We seek to address these limitationsin the current study and believe that investigating these potentialconnections may provide useful information for university admin-istrators and fraternity leaders as they develop programs to reducesexual assault on campus.Further, several studies have focused on either attitudes towardsexual violence (e.g., rape myth acceptance, attitudes toward arape victim) or perpetration of sexual violence. We think these areimportant indicators of acceptance of sexual violence, and weexpand on these measures by including a behavioral measure ofsexual deception (i.e., lying to have sex), which may be perceivedas less serious than sexual assault, but is still an important indicatorof malicious sexual behavior.We offer the following hypotheses (seeFigure 1):Hypothesis 1:Fraternity members will more strongly endorsemasculine norms, report more pressure from their friends touphold masculinity, and be more accepting of objectificationof women and sexual violence (i.e., more rape myth accep-tance, greater frequency of sexual deception) thannonmembers.Hypothesis 2:Endorsement of masculine norms, pressure touphold masculinity, and objectification of women will eachFigure 1.Hypothesized model.This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.5FRATERNITIES, MASCULINITY, AND SEXUAL ASSAULT

mediate the relation between fraternity membership and ac-ceptance of sexual violence.MethodProceduresThe sample was recruited from a population of 9,521 under-graduate men at a large public university in the Midwest. Recruit-ment began in mid-September 2014 and continued for 3 weeks.We recruited participants through email messages. Emails weresent directly to fraternity officers (presidents and point-of-contactsprovided by the Office of Greek Life) and to a random sample of1,973 male undergraduates in their first, second, or third year ofschool. The recruitment emails asked participants to complete asurvey about “men’s experiences with media use, dating, andsexual health at college” in exchange for a $10 gift card toStarbucks. The survey was part of a larger study that includedmeasures of media use, life satisfaction, romantic relationships,and sexual behaviors.ParticipantsThere were 522 men who completed the survey. Fifty-twoparticipants were deleted for spending less than 6 min on thesurvey (more than 1SDbelow average completion time). Another19 were deleted for failing all three validity checks. Because wewere interested in traditional masculine norms about gender andsexuality, we excluded two participants who identified as gender-queer and one participant who did not indicate a gender. We alsoexcluded 10 participants who answered less than 50% of thequestions for which they were eligible. Finally, we removed 61participants who did not indicate their fraternity status and 12participants who indicated they were in the process of joining afraternity (but not yet members). We were left with a total sampleof 365 undergraduate men.Most of the sample identified as White and heterosexual andwere 19 years of age on average (seeTable 1for detailed demo-graphic information). They came from well-educated backgrounds(on average their parents had completed over 20 years of educa-tion, equating to some master’s degree work). Our sample con-sisted of 26.3% (n96) first years, 35.9% (n131) sophomores,34.2% (n125) juniors, 3.0% (n11) seniors, and 0.5% (n2) fifth years or beyond (because this study was part of a largerlongitudinal study designed to follow-up with participants afterone year, we purposefully did not target seniors). Compared withnonmembers, fraternity members were slightly older and morelikely to identify as heterosexual than nonmembers (seeTable 1).MeasuresRape myth acceptance (RMA;Burt, 1980).To measureendorsement of rape myths, participants rated their agreement with10 statements using a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1strongly disagreeto 6strongly agree. Sample items include,“When a girl goes to a guy’s house on the first date, it means sheis willing to have sex” and, “Girls have a secret wish to be raped.”The RMA scale was validated on a sample of adult men andwomen (Burt, 1980). Internal consistency in our sample was good(.87).Sexual deception.Using deception to have sex was measuredusing the Blatant Lying subscale of the Sexual Deception Scale(Marelich, Lundquist, Painter, & Mechanic, 2008). Participantsindicate whether they have ever done seven different behaviors byresponding eitherYesorNo.Participants were instructed that sexcould refer to intercourse, oral sex, or manual stimulation. Exam-ples include, “Told someone ‘I love you’ but really didn’t just tohave sex with them” and, “Had sex with someone just so you couldtell your friends about it.”Yesresponses were coded as 1 andNoresponses as zero. Sum scores were calculated across the sevenitems such that higher scores indicate more deception. The SexualDeception Scale was validated on a sample of sexually activeuniversity students (Marelich et al., 2008). Internal consistencywas good (.81).Objectification of women.Acceptance of objectification ofwomen was measured using a modified version of the SexualObjectification Scale (Morse, 2008). We selected the 12 items thatloaded most strongly onto one factor for inclusion in the study. Weremoved one item (“Women who wear tight clothes or low cutshirts are asking to be hit on by men”) because the languageoverlapped with an item in the RMA Scale (“Girls who don’t wearbras or who wear short skirts and tight tops are asking for trou-ble”). We were left with 11 items. Participants indicated the extentto which they agreed with the 11 items on a 6-point Likert scaleranging from 1strongly disagreeto 6strongly agree.Sampleitems included, “It is okay for a guy to stare at the body of anTable 1Demographic Characteristics of SampleVariablesFull sampleFraternity members(N85)Nonmembers(N280)t(df)/2(df)Age19.3719.7119.272.62 (361)White68.5%71.8%67.5%.49 (1,N364)Asian/Asian-American18.1%12.9%19.6%2.01 (1,N364)Latino2.2%2.4%2.1%aBlack1.9%2.4%1.8%aMultiracial4.7%8.2%3.6%aMiddle Eastern3.3%2.4%3.6%aHeterosexual90.7%96.5%88.9%11.88 (1,N365)aInsufficient cell count for comparison.p.01.This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.6SEABROOK, WARD, AND GIACCARDI