Men who participate in religious activities less likely engage sexually aggressive behaviors

New research provides evidence that college men who frequently participant in religious activities are less likely to engage in sexually aggressive and coercive behaviors. The findings appear in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

“Sexual aggression is a problem on college campuses, as is the use of electronic communication tools to try to coerce others into performing unwanted sexual acts,” explained study author Timothy Hagen of Epoka University.

“In examining the literature on religiosity and sexual aggression, we found that religiosity may reduce sexual aggression by college males by reducing alcohol consumption, which is a strong predictor of sexual aggression. Seeing hints that there may be other possible paths by which religiosity impacted sexual aggression (SA) and technology-based sexually coercive behavior (TBC) by college males, we wanted to explore whether social norms, pornography consumption, and promiscuity were paths by which religiosity might impact SA and TBC.”