The Influence of Dating Apps on the Comprehension of Sexual Consent
Date
2021-05
Authors
Jefferson, Michaela
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore the demographic and psychosocial factors most associated with dating app users and to investigate their comprehension of sexual consent through text message exchanges. A total of one hundred and forty-nine male dating app users were recruited from mTurk for the study. Participants were asked to take a survey in which they responded to questions about demographics, dating app use motivation, and questions from a set of validated personality and psychosocial instruments. They were also asked to read 10 different vignettes and determine whether the text-based conversations indicated sexual consent. The participants were then placed into two comparison groups: misperceived consent group (MCG) and recognized no consent group (RNCG), based on their responses to the flirtatious vignettes. The groups were defined in this study based on the number of “B” group vignettes they answered correctly. No consent was given in the “B” group of vignettes, so two or more incorrect answers put participants in the MCG and three or more correct answers put them in the RNCG. Based on the final regression model, rape myth acceptance was found to be a significant predictor of misperceived consent. Personality subscales including extraversion and consciousness were also found to be significant indicators of perceived consent. The results from this study suggest that future research should be done in examining predictors of consent misperception on male dating app users in order to gain a better understanding of the growing number of sexual assaults on women.
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Keywords
dating apps, sexual consent
Citation
Jefferson, M. (2021). The influence of dating apps on the comprehension of sexual consent (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.