Adverse Childhood Experiences, Post-Traumatic Growth, and Social Support Predict Hypersexuality in College Students

This research examined whether suffering from sexual or domestic violence and/or other emotional and physical trauma during childhood (known as Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs) leads to unhealthy or destructive sexual behavior in adulthood. The goal was to replicate findings showing that ACEs increase risky sexual behavior and to extend this work to examine whether ACEs place a person at greater risk of hypersexuality. The extent to which having strong social support and experiencing post-traumatic growth mitigate the negative effects of ACEs was also examined. Results indicated that experiencing ACEs predicted more hypersexuality and risky sexual behavior, while post-traumatic growth predicted less hypersexuality. Social support did not predict hypersexuality or risky sexual behavior, although it was associated with greater post-traumatic growth. Results also revealed that those identifying as somewhat poor tended to report the highest number of ACEs, while those identifying as upper middle class reported the lowest number. In addition, those with low socioeconomic status (SES) reported more risky sexual behavior and hypersexuality. Furthermore, those whose parents both graduated from college reported the fewest number of ACEs. Age, gender, race, sexual orientation, and political alignment had no significant correlations with ACEs, hypersexuality, or risky sexual behavior. This suggests that economic and educational disadvantage rather than social identity creates risk of suffering from ACEs and their negative outcomes. These findings increase our understanding of the impact of ACEs and highlight risk factors, suggesting potential avenues for mitigating some of the devastating effects of adverse childhood experiences

Music Preferences, Gender-based Attitudes, and Perceptions of Rape Culture

We examined music listening habits, acceptance of rape culture, and gender stereotyping. We hypothesized that adults who had been exposed to higher levels of sexually deviant lyrics would be more approving of rape culture and stereotypes. Participants were 98 adults with a mean age of 21.93 (SD=5.16). The majority (74%) were women, Caucasian (54%), and heterosexual (65%). Participants provided their level of agreement with stereotypical gender roles and rape myths, as well as information about their music listening habits. We found significant differences between Caucasian and African American adults in their music listening habits; however, these two groups did not differ on acceptance of rape myths. In contrast, men and women reported similar music listening patterns, but men were more accepting of rape myths. These findings contradicted our hypothesis. Participants who enjoyed listening to the lyrics of sexually explicit music rejected rape myths and male dominance. One explanation is that today’s music contains elements of male and female sexual empowerment, perhaps being more salient or common than messages of violence and dominance. Further supporting this notion, we found that compared to heterosexual adults, non-heterosexual adults listened to lyrics more and rejected rape myths more strongly. Our data suggest that music is not the only factor that influences attitudes toward rape myths, as groups (men and women) that shared similar music listening patterns differed in their rape myth attitudes, while groups (Caucasian and African American) that differed in their music listening patterns shared similar rape myth attitudes