Family Functioning and Sexual Aggression in a Sample of College Men

This study attempted to contribute to the integrative etiological models of sexual aggression by comparing the family-of-origin functioning and rape-supportive attitudes of sexually aggressive and nonaggressive college men. The participants completed self-report instruments that measured rape myth acceptance, acceptance of interpersonal violence, adversarial sexual beliefs, sexual aggression, and family functioning factors. Contrary to expectations, sexually aggressive participants did not exhibit higher levels of authoritarian family style, enmeshment, or conflict than the nonaggressive men. However, a canonical correlation revealed that a significant correlation did exist between the composite of rape-supportive attitudes (adversarial sexual beliefs, acceptance of interpersonal violence, and rape myth acceptance) and the composite of family functioning factors (conflict, enmeshment, and authoritarian family style). Yet, simple bivariate correlations between the factors did not reach significance. Implications of these mixed results are discussed.