Does Sex on the Screen change the Attitude of a Teen? Longitudinal relationships between sexualized media consumption and permissive sexual attitudes, and the moderating role of parental communication and control.

Abstract

This study examines the hypothesis that a longitudinal relationship exists between sexualized media consumption and permissive sexual attitudes. I also hypothesize that this association is moderated by parents’ control of their offspring’s media use and communication about media use and sex. A total of 331 adolescents aged 14 to 17 were followed from 2009 to 2010, during 4 waves with 6 month time intervals in between. The results regarding the first hypothesis showed that there is no longitudinal relationship between sexual media consumption and permissive sexual attitudes, even though both increase over time. However at T3, significant moderator effects of sexualized media consumption in combination with parental control and with parental communication, were found. This indicates that at T3 for youth whose parents more tightly control their children’s media use and communicate more about sex with their children, sexualized media was more strongly associated with permissive sexual attitudes than for adolescents whose parents were less controlling and communicated less with them about sex.