The role of social dominance orientation, acculturation, and gender roles on self-reported sexual aggression in ethnic minority college student men

This study examined the roles of social dominance orientation and ambivalent sexism in predicting sexual aggression through the pathways of conformity to masculine role norms, gender role conflict, and acculturative stress. This study contributes to a growing understanding of the relations among attitudes towards women, beliefs about masculinity, and social dominance orientation and sexually aggressive behaviors. Hierarchical regressions examined the role that gender role conflict, masculine role norm adherence, acculturative stress, social dominance orientation, and ambivalent sexism played in predicting self-reported sexual aggression for 267 male college students who identified as ethnic minorities. Hispanic and Asian participants emerged as the largest groups of participants in this study. Adherence to traditional masculine role norms was found to predict self-reported sexual aggression, while gender role conflict, acculturative stress, social dominance orientation, and ambivalent sexism did not. Moderation analyses revealed that Hispanic or Asian racial identification did not serve as a significant moderator of adherence to traditional masculine role norms and self-reported sexual aggression. Study findings suggest that interventions to decrease sexual aggression may benefit from paying attention to adherence to traditional masculine role norms.