Adolescents’ Exposure to a Sexualized Media Environment and Their Notions of Women as Sex Objects

By Jochen Peter, Patti M. Valkenburg. 2007

331 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This study was designed to investigate whether adolescents’ exposure to a sexualized media environment is associated with stronger beliefs that women are sex objects. More specifically, we studied whether the association between notions of women as sex objects and exposure to sexual content of varied explicitness (i.e., sexually non-explicit, semi-explicit, or explicit) and in different formats (i.e., visual and audio-visual) can be better described as cumulative or as hierarchical. Further, we investigated whether this association was contingent on gender. Based on data from an on-line survey of 745 Dutch adolescents aged 13 to 18, we found that the relationship between exposure to a sexualized media environment and notions of women as sex objects followed a hierarchical pattern: Starting with adolescents’ exposure to sexually semi-explicit content, the statistical significance of the relationship with notions of women as sex objects moved from semi-explicit to explicit sexual content and from visual to audio-visual formats. Exposure to sexually explicit material in on-line movies was the only exposure measure significantly related to beliefs that women are sex objects in the final regression model, in which exposure to other forms of sexual content was controlled. The relationship between exposure to a sexualized media environment and notions of women as sex objects did not differ for girls and boys.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Gender Studies

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/58815a3208eeb11361cb1a13c15cf3fe110ea1fd

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Citations in the corpus

Adolescents' Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Notions of Women as Sex Objects: Assessing Causality and Underlying Processes (2009, methodology): “In line with the study by Peter and Valkenburg (2007), our investigation suggests that, at least among adolescents, SEIM affects the development of beliefs that woman are sex objects, albeit indirectly through the liking of such material.”
Adolescents' Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Sexual Preoccupancy: A Three-Wave Panel Study (2008, background): “Scholars progressively agree that adolescents grow up in a sexualized media environment (e.g., Brown et al., 2006; Greenfield, 2004; L’Engle, Brown, & Kenneavy, 2006; Peter & Valkenburg, 2007; Strasburger & Donnerstein, 1999).”
Television's Role in the Culture of Violence Toward Women: A Study of Television Viewing and the Cultivation of Rape Myth Acceptance in the United States (2011, background): “While a handful of cross-sectional studies focused on adolescent television viewing and linked viewing to notions of women as sex objects and subscription to traditional dating roles ( Peter & Valkenburg, 2007 ; Rivadeneyra & Lebo, 2008 ), few looked at the effects of viewing mainstream television ”
Sex and the Spectacle of Music Videos: An Examination of the Portrayal of Race and Sexuality in Music Videos (2011, background): “A number of studies have linked adolescents’ exposure to media depictions featuring objectification of women and sexually explicit materials to adolescents’ beliefs about women as sex objects ( Peter and Valkenburg 2007; Ward 2002; Ward and Friedman 2006).”
The Relationship Between Online Pornography and the Sexual Objectification of Women: The Attenuating Role of Porn Literacy Education (2017, methodology): “In line with earlier studies (Peter & Valkenburg, 2007, 2009), we found that the more individuals used SEIM, the more they adopted notions of women as sex objects.”
The Impact of Internet Pornography on Adolescents: A Review of the Research (2012, background): “Peter and Valkenburg (2007) published a study of Dutch adolescents (N = 745) that investigated the relationship between exposure to sexually explicit material and perceptions of women as sex objects.”
Sexual Self-Esteem in American and British College Women: Relations with Self-Objectification and Eating Problems (2009, background): “sexualized media environments that objectify women, which has been linked to the development of adolescent girls’ and boys’ notions of women as sex objects (American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls 2007; Grogan and Wainwright 1996; Harper and Tiggemann 2008; Pete”
Female Self-Sexualization in MySpace.com Personal Profile Photographs (2012, background): “In a study of adolescents, Peter and Valkenburg (2007) found that exposure to a sexualized media environment was associated with perceiving women as sex objects.”
A Meta-Analysis of Pornography Consumption and Actual Acts of Sexual Aggression in General Population Studies (2016, neutral): “Future survey studies on sexually aggressive behavior can ask specific questions about medium of delivery (Peter & Valkenburg, 2007) and future experiments on sexually aggressive attitudes can manipulate aspects of users’ experience that mimic online versus offline dynamics (Shim & Paul, 2014).”
“Putting on” Sexiness: A Content Analysis of the Presence of Sexualizing Characteristics in Girls’ Clothing (2011, background): “Peter and Valkenburg (2007) concluded that there is increased sexual content in the media, particularly with the advent of the internet.”
The Relationship Between Body Image Concerns, Eating Disorders and Internet Use, Part II: An Integrated Theoretical Model (2016, background): “It has been suggested that a large proportion of youth come into contact with sexually explicit Internet content, which has been associated with the perception of women as sex-objects (Doornwaard et al. 2015; Peter and Valkenburg 2007).”
The harms of pornography exposure among children and young people (2009, background): “‘Sexually explicit’ materials show ‘genitals and sexual activities in unconcealed ways’ (Peter and Valkenburg, 2007, p. 383).”