Ambivalent Sexism and Misogynistic Rap Music: Does Exposure to Eminem Increase Sexism?1

We evaluate the oft‐repeated but typically untested claim that rap music encourages sexism. We randomly assigned participants to 1 of 3 conditions: no music, misogynistic rap music, and nonmisogynistic rap music. The first study (treated as a pilot; N = 232) weakly demonstrated the differential impa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of applied social psychology Vol. 37; no. 12; pp. 3025 - 3042
Main Authors Cobb, Michael D., Boettcher, William A.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01.12.2007
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects
Rap music
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Summary:We evaluate the oft‐repeated but typically untested claim that rap music encourages sexism. We randomly assigned participants to 1 of 3 conditions: no music, misogynistic rap music, and nonmisogynistic rap music. The first study (treated as a pilot; N = 232) weakly demonstrated the differential impact of exposure on male and female participants, but our measures of sexism were unreliable. We then conducted a second study (N = 175) employing well‐validated (and more subtle) measures taken from the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI). While we replicated the weak differential impact of participants' sex, we also find that sexism increased after listening to nonmisogynistic rap music, especially among males. Implications for the debate about labeling and censoring rap music are discussed.
Bibliography:An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the annual meeting of the Southwest Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA, November 2001. We are grateful for the input provided by Andrew Taylor on that version of this research.
ISSN:0021-9029
1559-1816
DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2007.00292.x