Sexually Aggressive Tactics in Dating Relationships: Personality and Attitudinal Correlates

Abstract

The relationships were determined between two sets of dispositional measures, desirable and undesirable personality characteristics, and gender-related attitudes about sex roles, rape myths, and adversarial beliefs, and the use of sexually aggressive tactics by college men with their dates and the experience of college women with these tactics. In men, Impulsiveness, Negative Instrumentality, and Anger were significantly correlated with their scores on the Sexual Aggression scale. The attitudinal measures were also related to the Aggression measure, men with traditional sex-role preferences and negative beliefs about women reporting more aggression. Regression analyses indicated that a composite of the significant personality variables and of the attitudinal variables each made an independent contribution to the criterion. In women, Positive Instrumentality, Anger, and Impulsiveness were significantly related to reports of experience with aggressive tactics, low scores on the first variable and high scores on the latter two being associated with more victimization. Women high in traditional sex-role preferences and adversarial beliefs also reported more experience. Regression analysis indicated, however, that once the contribution of personality variables was taken into account, attitudes made no significant increase in R2