The main goal of this thesis was to enhance understanding of potentially offensive sexual behaviors that occur among adolescent peers. Sexual behaviors were divided into three categories: moderate---did not involve physical touching; severe non-coercive---involved physical touching without the use of coercion; and severe coercive---included physical touching that involved the use of coercion. The first manuscript examined the incidence and tolerance of potentially offensive sexual behaviors and results were comparable to those found in previous studies on peer sexual harassment among adolescents. Boys tended to perpetrate moderate behaviors to both boys and girls, whereas severe behaviors were perpetrated by other-sex peers. Most importantly, experiencing a greater incidence of moderate and severe sexual behaviors for girls, and severe sexual behaviors for boys, was associated with having more other-sex friends. The second manuscript focused on elements that influence the degree of upset over relatively ambiguous potentially offensive sexual behaviors (i.e., moderate and severe non-coercive behaviors). Targets with higher self-esteem tended to attribute more acceptable intents (e.g., thought I liked it) to the perpetrators of potentially offensive sexual behaviors. Furthermore, targets attributed more acceptable intents to close friends than other peers. However, targets were most upset when they attributed less acceptable intents (e.g., wanted to have power over me) to the perpetrator, regardless of self-esteem or relationship with the perpetrator. The final manuscript compared adolescent victims and perpetrators of peer sexual coercion and a control group. Sexist attitudes were highest in male perpetrators and in female victims. Furthermore, victims of sexual coercion tended to report relatively high amounts of drug and alcohol use, and both victims and perpetrators tended to be involved in more non-sexual deviance than controls. Overall
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.85080 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Lacasse, Anne S. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002187818, proquestno: AAINR06315, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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