Adolescent Sexual Behavior Tied to Motion Picture Sexual Content Exposure, Says MU Researcher

http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2012/0719-adolescent-sexual-behavior-tied-to-motion-picture-sexual-content-exposure-says-mu-researcher/

Timothy Wall University of Missouri July 19, 2012

Young people who watch more sexual content from movies also tend to engage in more sexual behavior and begin sexual activity at an earlier age, according to a University of Missouri researcher’s study.

“We can’t say that watching sexual content in movies is directly responsible for adolescents’ sexual behavior,” said Ross O’Hara, currently a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Missouri, who conducted the research with other psychological scientists while at Dartmouth College. “However, there is a correlation between the two. Sensation seeking, or the tendency to seek more novel and intense sexual stimulation, does seem to increase in young people who watched more movies with sexually explicit content.”