It Works Both Ways: The Relationship between Exposure to Sexual Content in the Media and Adolescent Sexual Behavior

Abstract

Using a longitudinal web-based survey of adolescents 14-16 years of age, we estimate regression models where self-reported sexual behavior and content analytic-based exposure to sex in the media are related cross-sectionally and longitudinally. We find evidence for both cross-sectional non-recursive and prospective longitudinal relationships even after adjusting for both established predictors of sexual behavior (e.g., physical development, having a romantic partner, parental monitoring, peer and parental norms, respondent's age) and of exposure to sexual media content (e.g., time the respondent goes to bed, extracurricular activities, television in the bedroom, total time spent with television, music, videogames, and magazines). Sexually active adolescents are more likely to expose themselves to sex in the media and those exposed to sex in the media are more likely to progress in their sexual activity. These findings are consistent with others in the literature that demonstrate a causal effect of exposure to sexual content on sexual behavior but extend established results by also looking at the causal effect of sexual behavior on exposure both cross-sectionally and over time.

Figure 1

Generic two stage least squares model of sexual behavior and exposure to media sexual content Notes: Correlations between exogenous variables and between endogenous error terms not shown for clarity.

Figure 2

Two stage least squares standardized regression results for nonrecursive and longitudinal prediction of sexual behavior index and sexual content exposure with lagged endogenous predictors (N = 441)

Figure 3

Two stage least squares standardized regression results for nonrecursive and longitudinal prediction of sexual behavior index and sexual content exposure without lagged endogenous predictors (N = 441) Notes: Regression coefficients are standardized. Statistically significant coefficients are in bold italics. See Table 2 for correlations of the error terms of the endogenous variables.