Journal of Interpersonal Violence
2018, Vol. 33(2) 228–249
© The Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0886260515604414
journals.sagepub.com/home/jiv
Article
Sexual Attitudes
Moderate the Effects of
Alcohol Intoxication on
Women’s Risk Judgments
Elizabeth A. Yeater,
1
Teresa A. Treat,
2
Richard J. Viken,
3
and Kathryn L. Lenberg
1
Abstract
This study evaluated the effects of alcohol intoxication, sexual attitudes,
and sexual victimization history on the cognitive processes underlying
undergraduate women’s risk judgments. Participants were 116 unmarried,
undergraduate women between the ages of 21 and 29. The sample was
diverse ethnically and composed primarily of heterosexual women. Stimuli
were written vignettes describing social situations that varied on dimensions
of sexual victimization risk and potential impact on women’s popularity.
Participants were assigned randomly to an alcohol or a no-alcohol condition,
and completed an explicit classification task in which they rated how risky each
situation was in terms of their having an unwanted sexual experience. They
then completed the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) and the Sociosexuality
Scale (SS); SES responses were used to quantify the severity of victimization
experiences, and SS responses were used to measure endorsement of
positive attitudes toward casual, impersonal sex. Although there was no main
effect for condition, higher sociosexuality predicted use of higher thresholds
for judging situations as risky. Importantly, sociosexuality interacted with
condition such that higher sociosexuality predicted lower sensitivity to risk
1
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
2
University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
3
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
Corresponding Author:
Elizabeth A. Yeater, Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Logan Hall,
Albuquerque, NM 87131-1161, USA.
Email: eyeater@umn.edu
604414JIV XX X 10.1177/0886260515604414Journal of Interpersonal ViolenceYeater et al.
research-article 2015