The Roles of Acute Alcohol Intoxication, Emotional Arousal, and Emotion Regulation on Men’s Sexual Aggression Intentions

Abstract

As many as 33 to 52% of men report committing a sexually aggressive act since the age of 14 (Abbey, Jacques-Tiura, & LeBreton, 2011). Alcohol is a significant factor: Up to 66% of sexual assaults occur when the perpetrator has been drinking (Abbey et al., 2011; Davis et al., 2014a), yet research is needed to understand what individual-level characteristics contribute to this association. Emotional arousal – the strength and duration of emotions – and emotion regulation – the capacity to detect and modulate emotions – are associated with sexual aggression. Alcohol intoxication may act both independently and synergistically with emotional arousal and emotion regulation to increase the likelihood of sexual aggression. Utilizing an alcohol administration experiment with sexual assault analog, two studies were conducted to investigate emotional arousal and emotion regulation, measured through both psychophysiological and self-report metrics, as predictors of sexual assault perpetration. Study 1 (N = 94) utilized latent growth curve modeling to examine how trajectories of six measures of emotional arousal are associated with in-the-moment intentions to perpetrate sexual assault. This study also examined the effects of acute intoxication and response inhibition on emotional arousal and sexual assault perpetration intentions. It is theorized that sexually aggressive men fail to inhibit emotional arousal; however, a direct measure of the construct has not yet been examined. Results suggest that the rate of change and acceleration of happiness and subjective sexual arousal are associated with intentions to perpetrate sexual assault. Study 2 utilized the same sample (N = 94) to examine a trait-state model of emotional arousal and emotion regulation. Structural equation modeling was used to assess alcohol intoxication as a moderator of the associations between trait and state emotional arousal, emotion regulation, and sexual assault perpetration intentions. Results suggest that trait and state emotional arousal are associated with intentions to perpetrate sexual assault. In neither study did intoxicated men differ from sober men in their intentions to perpetrate sexual assault. The examination and methodology used to study these constructs is novel and has the potential to elucidate the understanding of the etiology of sexual aggression perpetration and inform prevention/intervention.