Sexually aggressive men's perceptions of women's communications

Testing three explanations

Bibliographic Data

ID10154692
AuthorsNeil M Malamuth (0000-0002-4742-3487, University of Michigan, corresponding author), Lisa M Brown (0000-0002-3793-7310)
Year1994
Volume67
Issue4
Pages699-712
Publication date1994-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.699
PMID7965615
OpenAlexW4253885717
LanguageEN
Citations received80

The authors tested three explanations of findings that sexually aggressive men perceive women's communications differently than less aggressive men. The first suggests that aggressors are incompetent in decoding women's negative emotions. The second posits that they fail to make subtle distinctions between women's friendliness and seductiveness and between assertiveness and hostility. The third explanation contends that sexual aggressors use a suspicious schema and therefore discount the veridicality of women's communications. These explanations were tested using videotaped scenarios in which a woman's responses to a man's advances were systematically varied. The data were most supportive of the suspicious schema explanation. These findings are integrated with other research on the characteristics of sexual aggressors and on the perceptions of aggressive children and of maritally violent men. Implications for interventions are also discussed

Aggression · Assertiveness · Developmental psychology · Hostility · Perception · Psychological intervention · Schema (genetic algorithms · Social perception · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Intimate Partner and Family Violence · Psychology · Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology

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