RALEIGH, N.C., Feb. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- That's the conclusion
of a North Carolina State University study that examined rap music's
effects on sexist attitudes among college students. Many critics claim that
rap music causes sexist beliefs, but the study's authors suggest the
connection they found between rap and sexism is unlikely to be a direct
cause-and-effect.
"It's like hearing the word 'chocolate' and suddenly having a craving
for a candy bar," says Dr. Michael Cobb, assistant professor of political
science, who conducted the study along with Dr. Bill Boettcher, associate
professor of political science.
Cobb and Boettcher's findings -- titled "Ambivalent Sexism and
Misogynistic Rap Music: Does Exposure to Eminem Increase Sexism?" -- were
recently published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
The study found that college students who were asked to listen to rap
music had significantly higher levels of reported sexism. In the study,
males who listened to any rap music were more sexist than those in the
control group even though sometimes the rap lyrics did not include sexist
language. Females in the study also reported higher levels of sexism when
rap music was not sexist in its language, but their endorsement of sexist
beliefs was the lowest after listening to rap with overtly sexist language.
"Sexism is imbedded in the culture we live in, and hearing rap music
can spontaneously activate pre-existing awareness of sexist beliefs," Cobb
says. "We feel it's unlikely that hearing lyrics in a song creates
attitudes that did not previously exist. Instead, rap music, fairly or
unfairly, has become associated with misogyny, and even minimal exposure to
it can automatically activate these mental associations and increase their
application, at least temporarily."
To measure the association between rap and sexism, students were
recruited to take part in a study and were randomly assigned to one of
three experimental conditions. In the control group, students' levels of
sexism were measured, but they did not listen to any music. A second
condition required students to listen to non-sexist rap music, while a
third required them to listen to a rap song with explicitly sexist
language. In these two conditions, students' levels of sexism were measured
after listening to the music, but they were unaware of the true purpose of
the study.
Participants in the group assigned to listen to rap with sexist lyrics
heard the song Kill You by Eminem, which describes hostility and violence
toward women. The group listening to rap with non-sexist lyrics heard
Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, a song that has a similar rhythm to Kill You,
but is devoid of overt sexist lyrics.
As expected, males were more sexist across all three conditions.
Surprisingly, however, Cobb and Boettcher found that sexist attitudes among
respondents also increased after exposure to rap that contained no sexist
lyrics.
"Rap music may be associated with sexist attitudes and beliefs,
regardless of the actual lyrical content," Cobb says. "So non-sexist rap
can now have sexist implications. This gets back to our hypothesis that we
don't think rap music causes sexism, because how can rap that contains
non-sexist lyrics cause someone to become sexist?"
According to Cobb, "the key to understanding why women rejected sexism
only after listening to Eminem is motivated self-awareness. In the absence
of explicitly sexist language, the negative associations with rap music are
still being primed. In this case, however, the receiver is unaware that
this process is taking place and therefore makes no attempt to inhibit
their reactions. When women listened to Eminem, however, the blatant
misogyny is startling to them and it triggers a more careful interpretation
and rejection of the premises in the song. Males, who were not the targets
of Eminem's ire in the song, are not as motivated to recognize the
mechanisms at work."
The findings that listeners to both kinds of rap music had higher
levels of sexist attitudes than those in the control group, particularly
males, is a cause for concern, Cobb says, but it is a concern that also
calls for more research into understanding the relationship between the
origins of music and the expressed attitudes.
"Priming latent sexism is not the same thing as causing it," Cobb says.
"At worst, we could conclude that rap music might exacerbate pre-existing
tendencies, but so too can other genres of music and varied forms of
entertainment. There is not much evidence in our study to support an
argument in favor of censorship."
This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise(TM). For more
information, visit http://www.newswise.com.
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