The Effect of Sexual Arousal on Rapists' Implicit and Explicit Attitudes towards Rape

Previous research on rapists' cognitions has primarily focused on rape-related constructs, not specifically on attitudes towards rape, and has been limited to explicit cognitions. Furthermore, recent studies have found that sexual arousal changes perceptions of deviant sexual acts and the reported likelihood of being sexually coercive in male undergraduate students (Ariely & Loewenstein, 2006).The influence of sexual arousal on implicit and explicit attitudes toward rape was examined using data collected from 24 rapists and 12 non-sex offenders. Results demonstrated that when sexually aroused rapists' implicitly evaluated rape less negatively but explicitly evaluated rape more negatively than when non-aroused. Sexual arousal had no significant influence on non sex offenders' implicit and explicit attitudes towards rape. The results of this study offer valuable insight about the potential role of sexual arousal and offence supportive attitudes in the commission of sexually aggressive behaviour.

Keywords: rape, implicit, explicit, attitudes, cognition, sexual arousal