The effect of soft‐core and hard‐core erotica on provoked and unprovoked hostile behavior

Abstract

Abstract Both male and female subjects were provoked or not provoked, exposed to erotic motion pictures that ranged from suggestive to explicitly sexual, or given a control treatment of either a neutral film or a no‐communication waiting period, and provided with an opportunity to behave in a hostile manner. It was predicted that provoked persons' hostility would be reduced by minimally arousing but maximally pleasant erotica and increased by maximally arousing but minimally pleasant erotica. Regardless of the degree of sexual explicitness, erotica had no appreciable effect on unprovoked males or females. Excitatory reactions to erotica were comparable for both sexes. There were significant sex differences in the hedonic responses to these stimuli, however. Females reported being disturbed to a much greater degree than did males. Males reported positive affective reactions to films depicting coitus, but not to a film depicting precoital behavior. Inexplicit erotica with positive hedonic valence did not re...