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What Incels Can Tell Us About Misogyny: Evaluating Sexual Frustration and Pornography Usage as Potential Factors for Misogyny.

Stickel, Johannes (2020) What Incels Can Tell Us About Misogyny: Evaluating Sexual Frustration and Pornography Usage as Potential Factors for Misogyny.

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Abstract:Misogyny still constitutes a major problem in society. Previous research mainly focused on cultural structures and social mechanisms to explain misogyny. However, there is a lack of research that aims to explain what other factors might contribute to misogyny. The current study tried to fill that gap by developing new ideas about what factors relate to misogyny derived from the special case of the Incel community. Based on these new insights and previous research, it was proposed that general pornography usage, violent pornography usage and sexual frustration could be potential factors that drive misogynistic attitudes and rape proclivity. In an online cross-sectional study (N=202), these variables were tested in a mixed convenience sample including 20 Incels and 182 non-Incels. The measures for general pornography usage and violent pornography usage were developed by the author. Sexual frustration was measured with the Sexual Frustration Scale (Gizzarelli & Scott, 1994). Moreover, misogynistic attitudes (acceptance of modern myths about sexual aggression, hostility towards women, and sexual objectification of women) were assessed with the Acceptance of Modern Myths About Sexual Aggression Scale (Gerger, Kley, Bohner & Siebler, 2007), the Hostility Towards Women Scale (Check, 1985) and the Sexual Reductionism Scale (Peter & Valkenburg, 2007). Furthermore, as a measure for rape proclivity, the Likelihood of Rape Scale was used (Malamuth, 1981). Bivariate correlations and multiple regressions were conducted which showed that sexual frustration significantly predicted sexual objectification of women, hostility towards women and acceptance of modern myths about sexual aggression. Moreover, general pornography usage predicted sexual objectification of women. However, none of the determined factors were able to predict rape proclivity. Lastly, Incels scored higher on misogynistic attitudes than non-Incels. Based on these findings it was concluded that sexual frustration is an important factor in contributing to misogyny. It is recommended that future research should focus on verifying the relationship between sexual frustration and misogynistic attitudes and to investigate what factors influence sexual frustration.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/83875
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