The Messages Of Youths Receive From The Two Important...

Summary The purpose of the study was to look at the messages that youths receive from the two important sources of information, parents and friends. The study looked to explore the different types of messages being received by youth, and how they differed among parents and friends. When looking into the messages youths received the study explores three sexual discourses and their related messages. The first discourse was the gender-specific double standard discourse. The gender-specific double standard discourse acknowledges that boys and girls are socialized differently in terms of sexual behavior, and what is appropriate. When studying the messages from this discourse, the study looked to examine the extent to which gender-specific†¦show more content†¦Through the sexual abstinence the hypothesize findings were that young men would receive less abstinence only messages, an increase in abstinence only messages will lead to a decrease in sexual agency messages in both genders, and t his will also lead to encouragement of rape myths and forced behaviors and experiences. Lastly, the positive-sexuality messages discourse hypothesized that young women will receive less positive-sexuality messages than young men, an increase in these messages will lead to an increase in the levels of sexual agency among both genders, and will be linked to a decrease in the encouragement of rape myths as well as a decrease in forced behaviors and experiences (Levin, 2005). To conduct the study, the researchers surveyed 332 undergraduate students at a large Midwestern university in 2005. The participants ranged in age from 17-22, and were 57 percent female. In regards to the racial makeup, 73.5 percent identified as white or Caucasian, 15.4 identified as Asian or Pacific Islander, 4.2 percent as Latina or Latino, and 3.9 percent as black or African American. Almost all of the participants (98 percent) identified as exclusively heterosexual. The participants were surveyed for an hour, and they were compensated in the partial completion of a psychology course requirement (Levin, 2005). The researchers also developed a