The purpose of this Memo is to show the correlation between violent pornography consumption and the formation of attitudes towards sexual violence against women.

Context

Sexual violence towards women is a big problem nowadays, according to WHO (2021), 1 in 3 women globally has experienced sexual violence in their lifetime. Additionally in the latest big data analysis of 4009 heterosexual scenes from Pornhub and Xvideos researchers found that at least in 45% of videos there are acts of physical violence and in 97% of them, women were the target of sexual violence. (Fritz et al 2020)

Task Segment

To understand does violent pornography have a harmful effect on society, first, the memo will provide data from different resources worldwide on violent pornography consumption. Additionally, it will be important to present statistics on sexual crimes. Then will be discussed attitude formation process in a given case and finally will be drawn a conclusion based on the mentioned data and theories.

Discussion Segment

According to pornhub.com (2019) statistics, the website was visited 42 billion times worldwide, which on average is 115 million visits per day. Fritz et al., (2020) analysed 4009 scenes and found that 45.1% contains at least one act of physical aggression towards women and 10.1% of verbal violence. When only 3.7% of violent acts were targeting men. Additionally, victims’ reactions towards violence mostly were neutral or positive. Previous research was shown similar data that women are targets of aggression in most cases – 84.7% (Barron and Kimmel, 2000). 

The study on sexual harassment and assault, reports that 81% of the sample of 996 women experienced sexual assault or harassment during their lifetime (Kearl, H. 2018). Moreover, 1in 5 women in the USA experienced completed or attempted rape in their lifetime, according to NISVS (Smith, S. 2018). 

The significance of pornography in today’s life can not be denied. In the last decade, it has been studied more and important results were found. One of the notable research is a meta-analysis by Wright et al.(2016), which examined 22 research from 7 countries. The results proved the correlation between violent pornography consumption and attitudes to sexual violence against women. Moreover, the data claims that individuals who frequently use pornography are more likely to have negative attitudes towards women and to act out sexually violent behaviour. 

This can be explained by the fact that frequently observed sexual behaviour strengthens the attitude towards such behaviour. Also, an important factor in strengthening the attitude is the victim’s positive reaction towards sexual violence in pornography. For instance, Donnerstein and Berkowitz (1981) proved that such a reaction justifies aggression and diminishes the importance of the issue. This leads an observer to learn a new sexual behaviour pattern where an aggressive act leads to positive feedback from a woman. What is more, the objectification of body parts as sexual objects enables the process of “dehumanising” a person, which makes violence against them much more acceptable (Wilson, 2012). Cultural normalisation of sexual violence leads to reinforcement of the attitude, as described by the utilitarian function of attitudes.

It is also important to take into consideration the attention factor. Objects towards which people have strong attitudes draw attention. Which helps to categorise and leads to the automatisation of a cognitive process. Less energy is consumed by the decision-making process when people bring attention to the object with an already-formed strong attitude (Cooper, J., et al. 2016). What is interesting here to mention, is that in the latest research in the neurology area, scientists found out that grey matter shrinks as the result of often usage of pornography. Frequent abuse of the reward system of the brain rewires it, which affects decision-making ability (Kühn and Gallinat, 2014).

Attention factors and negatively affected decision-making ability coincide. Making a person come back to get that dopamine release again by using pornography more and more at any stressful moment. Though, to get the same feeling a person has to watch more extreme content because the regular won’t cause such excitement. So, the level of violence increases. These factors enhance the effect of strengthening the attitude towards violence against women. Because a person gets positive feedback from everywhere, society approves and shares this interest, women in videos show a positive reaction, brain release dopamine. All those factors signalled that this is an approved scenario. 

Another important issue in negative attitude formation is – with exposure to sexually aggressive pornography, female viewers develop acceptance of victimisation over time (Bonino, 2006). Thus normalising sexual aggression as an acceptable social behaviour forms an attitude towards male partners as they must exhibit aggressiveness during sexual acts. Which only reinforces sexual aggression in male behaviour, through positive feedback. 

Closing Segment

From the provided data on pornography consumption, we can conclude that it has a permanent place in the lives of many people and it is important to be aware of its effect. As in stated earlier arguments, it is clear that exposure to sexual, violent content influence on the formation of attitudes towards women and great exposure to it leads to a bigger likelihood of engaging in sexually violent behaviour against women. There is plenty of evidence of that in older research like in Donnerstein’s (1984) experiment where it was confirmed that after exposure men expressed that they are more likely to engage in violent behaviour; and in new research like in Wright’s (2011) meta-analysis. This leads to the conclusion, violent pornography has a great impact on the mind and forms negative attitudes towards women. What is more, frequent usage negatively influences decision-making ability and even can cause an addictive type of behaviour. 

These factors are enough to be concerned about the accessibility of such material and it raises a question – “Should it be regulated on some level and how it can be organised?”

References

• Barron, M., & Kimmel, M. (2000). Sexual violence in three pornographic media: Toward a sociological explanation. Journal of Sex Research, 37(2), 161–168. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490009552033
• Bonino, S., Ciairano, S., Rabaglietti, E., & Cattelino, E. (2006). Use of pornography and self-reported engagement in sexual violence among adolescents. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 3(3), 265–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405620600562359
• Cooper, J., Blackman, S.F., & Keller, K.T. (2016). Chapter 3: The Functions of Attitudes. The Science of Attitudes. Routledge.
• Donnerstein, E., & Berkowitz, L. (1981). Victim reactions in aggressive erotic films as a factor in
• violence against women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 110-124. 
• Donnerstein, E., Malamuth, N., (1984). Pornography and sexual aggression. Academic press. https://bunker4.zlibcdn.com/dtoken/93388e19fb1a66f8aad9cad2323c7f79
• Fritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A Descriptive Analysis of the Types, Targets, and Relative Frequency of Aggression in Mainstream Pornography. Archives of sexual behavior, 49(8), 3041–3053. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0
• Kearl, H. (2018). The facts behind the #metoo movement: A national study on sexual harassment and assault. Stop Street Harassment. https://www.nsvrc.org/resource/facts-behind-metoo-movement-national-study-sexual-harassment-and-assault
• Kühn, S., Gallinat, J. (2014). Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(7):827-834. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.93
• Paul J. Wright, P., Tokunaga, R., & Kraus, A. (2015). A Meta-Analysis of Pornography Consumption and Actual Acts of Sexual Aggression in General Population Studies. Journal of Communication. DOI: 10.1111/jcom.12201 
• Pornhub Insights. (2019). The 2019 year in review. https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-review.
• Smith, S. G., Zhang, X., Basile, K. C., Merrick, M. T., Wang, J., Kresnow, M., & Chen, J. (2018). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2015 data brief – updated release. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.nsvrc.org/resource/2500/national-intimate-partner-and-sexual-violence-survey-2015-data-brief-updated-release
• Violence against women Prevalence Estimates, 2018. Global, regional and national prevalence estimates for intimate partner violence against women and global and regional prevalence estimates for non-partner sexual violence against women. WHO: Geneva, 2021 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women
• Wilson, 2012, May 16. The great porn experiment. TEDxGlasgow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU&t=184s

Social psychology is the scientific study of human’s behaviour, thoughts, feelings within the social context. Studies of this nature can help understand what effect has the social world on individuals and groups, help predict social behaviour and change it. This requires a strong scientific basis to not harm anyone. That’s why social psychologists use scientific methods. First, they build up the theory based on found evidence. Then, scientists propose and test a hypothesis by actual interaction with people. After they’ve collected enough data, psychologists evaluate the theory. By the conclusion of it, they either approve the theory or disapprove it and start the revision (Bernstein, 2016). No doubt this is the right way to study human’s mental processes and behaviour, especially when data of the research can help resolve major social issues, such as aggressive behaviour. There were conducted numerous studies on that topic, but this work will specifically focus on 2 famous social psychology studies. 

The first study was conducted by Donnerstein in which he investigated the connection between violent pornography and aggression towards women. Donnerstein created a laboratory experiment where male participants would offer to watch an erotic non-violent film, aggressive pornography video (2 types: with victim positive reaction and negative reaction) and non-sexual aggressive film with the same amount of violence toward a woman. Afterwards, subjects get an option to aggress against a female confederate by administrating an electric shock. Additionally, participants after the experiment would fill in self-reports where they give answers to related questions (1984). The series of studies showed that light pornography doesn’t increase aggression towards women (Donnerstein and Barrett, 1978). Mosher (1971). The meanwhile non-sexual aggressive film increased aggressive attitudes in pre-angered and non-pre-angered men towards females. Malamuth and Check (1981). The biggest increase showed subjects watched a violent sexual video. What is more, a victim positive reaction to violence is a crucial aspect, as it is justifying aggression and diminish the importance of the issue. Donnerstein and Berkowitz (1981). That data has been supported by subjects’ self-reports where they showed an increase in acceptance of rape myths, willingness to use force and admit they would commit rape if not caught. Donnerstein (1983 B). Such results show a strong correlation between exposure to violent pornography and violence against women. 

The previous experiment has shown the result of a single exposure to violent content. Thereby it will be interesting to look at the effect of long term exposure to aggressive content, for example, violence in media. Berkowitz created a series of experiments to study the effect of observing filmed violence. First, the male subject is paired with the confederate while working on an intelligence test. Confederate insults a subject. The next task is to watch a short violent video. Half of the subjects watch a video where the protagonist receives a harsh beating and is portrayed as an “evil guy” who deserves punishment. The other half of the subjects viewed a video where they felt more sympathetic towards the victim of violence. Then participants watch another violent video of a man getting beaten. Afterwards, subjects have been told to judge the work of their co-worker and give one electric shock if they find the job is decent or more shocks if the job is done poorly. The results showed men who saw the justification of violence acted more aggressive towards their co-workers. (1964)

In conclusion, scientific studies on aggression established the effect of violent sexual and non-sexual media on men’s behaviour and social attitudes against women and men. 

References

Berkowitz, l., 1964. The Effects of Observing Violence. Scientific American, Vol. 210(2), 313-324. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.526.5954&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Bernstein, D., 2016. Psychology: Foundations and Frontiers. Cengage Learning. 

Donnerstein, E., Malamuth, N., 1984. Pornography and sexual aggression. Academic press. https://bunker4.zlibcdn.com/dtoken/93388e19fb1a66f8aad9cad2323c7f79

Donnerstein, E., & Berkowitz, L. (1981). Victim reactions in aggressive erotic films as a factor in

violence against women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, Ί10-124.