Naughty Versus Nice: Suggestive PopMusic Influences on Perceptions of Potential Romantic Partners

Francesca Dillman CarpentierUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Silvia Knobloch-WesterwickOhio State University

Andree BlumhoffDresden University of Technology

This study investigated the effect mainstream music featuring sexually suggestivelyrics may have on judgments of potential romantic partners. Respondents listenedto either sexually provocative or innocuous music. Thereafter, respondents werepresented with online personal advertisements featuring ambiguously described tar-get individuals. Respondents rated each individual first on a series of personalityand sexual appeal characteristics and later on overall attraction. Results indicatedthat sexually provocative lyrics acted as a prime, in that respondents who listenedto sexually charged music evaluated the target individuals with a heavier emphasison sexual appeal, in comparison to respondents listening to nonsexual songs.Implications regarding comprehension of lyrics, song familiarity, and Internet chatroom behaviors are discussed.

Sex. Music. From the swiveling hips of Elvis to the undulating bodies of today’slatest hip-hop videos, sex and music have often been seen dancing cheek tocheek. This relation between sex and popular media has historically raised publicconcern about its detrimental effects on younger audiences, from unwanted teen

MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY, 9, 1–17Copyright © 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Correspondence should be sent to Francesca Dillman Carpentier, University of North Carolinaat Chapel Hill, Carroll Hall, Campus Box 3365, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3365. E-mail: francesca.carpentier@gmail.com

pregnancies to the breakdown of family and moral values. In Britain, complaintsof inappropriate sexual media content peaked at the turn of this century, asrecorded by the Broadcasting Standards Commission, the International TelevisionCommission, and the BBC’s Program Complaints Unit (Gunter, 2002). In theUnited States, this growing concern is perhaps best exemplified by the formationand efforts of the Parents’ Music Resource Center (Gore, 1987). This organiza-tion successfully urged Washington to pressure the music industry into placing aself-regulatory parental advisory sticker on any recording containing inappropri-ate material. Even so, the music industry has been severely criticized for havingloose self-regulation (Federal Trade Commission, 2001), despite its parentaladvisory label. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee onCommunications (1996):

During the past four decades, rock music lyrics have become increasinglyexplicit—particularly with reference to sex, drugs, and violence.… Such lyrics areof special concern in today’s environment, which poses unprecedented threats to thehealth and well-being of adolescents. Pregnancy, drug use, acquired immunodefi-ciency syndrome (and other sexually transmitted diseases), injuries, homicide, andsuicide have all become part of the landscape of everyday life for many Americanteens. (p. 1219)

In the realm of media research, collections of studies have offered evidence ofthe increasing sexual content in the media (Greenberg, 1994; Greenberg &Hofschire, 2000). For example, the Kaiser Family Foundation funded a study thatcompared sexual content shown by the three major television networks in themid-1970s, mid-1980s, and mid-1990s. Findings indicated that the percentage ofshows on the networks that featured sexual content dramatically rose from 43%in 1976 to 75% in 1996 (Kunkel, Cope, & Colvin, 1996). In a much larger late1990 follow-up that examined close to 1,000 programs across network and cabletelevision, researchers observed that over half of the sampled programs containedat least some sexual material (Kunkel et al., 1999).

Though not as widely studied, similar trends have been seen for audiovisualdepictions of sex in music videos. A few investigations found that between halfand three quarters of music videos shown on MTV contained some sexual con-tent (Baxter, De Riemer, Landini, Leslie, & Singletary, 1985; Sherman &Dominick, 1986; Vincent, Davis, & Bronszkowski, 1987). This is problematicconsidering that teens watch music videos on average between 15 and 30 min aday, which constitutes about 15% of their daily television intake (Christenson &Roberts, 1998).

In addition to music videos, music itself has attracted scholarly attention.Content analyses of popular music from the 1940s to today have consistentlyshown that between 70% and 90% of the songs contain sexual themes (e.g.,Arnett, 2002; Christenson & Roberts, 1998). However, Christenson and Roberts

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have noted that sexual lyrics are becoming increasingly explicit, focusing moreon casual sex and sexual acts rather than romantic innuendo (also Bennett, 2002;Powers, 2001). This is corroborated by Dukes, Bisel, Borega, Lobato, and Owens(2003), who analyzed greatest hits from 1958 to1998 and found that love songscontained fewer references to love and more references to sex over time.

Various figures show teens and young adults listening to popular music daily,averaging between 3 and 4 hours a day (Arnett, 2002). In addition, the RecordingIndustry Association of America (2003) listed young adults as being responsiblefor one third of all music sales. Therefore, given the high level of music consump-tion by this demographic, it is little surprise that youth indicate pop music as amajor source of pressure in sexual engagement at an early age (Howard, 1985).Fortunately, young children are somewhat protected from detrimental effects ofsexually charged music, in that understanding of lyrics increases with age(Greenfield et al., 1987). Likewise, some songs are performed such that much ofthe lyrical content is unintelligible. However, researchers have noted that, althoughadolescents may not have a complete understanding of lyrics, they still process thelyrics at a schematic level and gain a general understanding of what the song isabout (Hall, 1998; Hansen & Hansen, 1991). In addition, listeners can easily readthe lyrics on the Internet or within the CD cover. They can also expose themselvesto a recording often enough to decipher the focus of the message, which would notbe difficult with the proliferation of pop music in heavy radio rotation.

As the sexual content of pop music has become increasingly prevalent andenjoyed by its audiences (see Dixon & Linz, 1997), the identification of themechanisms behind the potential effects of this music has also increased. Onemechanism that has gained support within music video research is that of mediapriming. Similar to Berkowitz’s (1984) model that explained the onset of aggres-sion via activation of concepts associated with violence, the media primingmodel focuses on the activation of a concept that later influences a seeminglyunrelated judgment (Price & Tewksbury, 1997; see also Roskos-Ewoldsen,Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Dillman Carpentier, 2002). The activation of the conceptcan be complex, or it can be as simple as hearing a word associated with thatconcept. Increasing the intensity, frequency, or length of this activation canstrengthen the resulting priming effect (e.g., Higgins, Bargh, & Lombardi,1985). In addition, all priming effects fade over time if not reactivated (e.g.,Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, 1986; Higgins, 1996; Higgins et al.,1985; Srull & Wyer, 1979, 1980).

Specific to perception formation, priming research has demonstrated that aconcept that is activated, or primed, through exposure to a word, sentence, ornews story will become the most salient criterion used in making later judgments.In other words, the prime will influence the importance of the various criteriaused in forming perceptions of others (Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977; Iyengar& Kinder, 1987; Iyengar, Kinder, Peters, & Krosnick, 1984; Krosnick & Kinder,

SUGGESTIVE MUSIC AND PERCEPTIONS OF ROMANTIC PARTNERS 3

1990; Srull & Wyer, 1979, 1980). These examples suggest that music may alsocreate priming effects that influence perceptions of individuals not directlyrelated to the music itself.

Evidence of the priming potential of music videos has been seen in variousstudies by Hansen and colleagues, which illustrate the ability for sexual content invideos to influence viewers’ social judgments and perceptions via the activation ofstereotypes (e.g., Hansen, 1989; Hansen & Hansen, 1988) and sex-object schemas(Hansen & Krygowski, 1994). Similarly, music videos featuring African Americanwomen as sexual objects have activated schemas that negatively influenced eval-uations of unrelated African American women (Gan, Zillmann, & Mitrook, 1997).

Oddly, little has been documented about the potential priming effects of sexu-ally explicit music, detached from music video phenomena. A few studies showthat sung lyrics can transmit messages at the thematic level (Hansen & Hansen,1991), in addition to being recognized as personally relevant to the listener(Iverson, Reed, & Revlin, 1989). However, little evidence has been offered as towhether the influences of music have a priming effect on a person’s perception. Ithas been empirically established only that music, with the added reinforcement ofvisual imagery, produces effects on listeners’ perceptions of their environment.Therefore, because popular music without video accompaniment is funneling intomillions of ears, it is important to know whether messages disseminated in sexu-ally suggestive songs can potentially influence the formulation of peer judgments.

Our experiment sought to determine whether music featuring sexuallyprovocative lyrics can act as a prime that influences the importance of differentcriteria listeners use to judge ambiguously described individuals. Specifically,will listening to sexually charged music, as opposed to music devoid of overtlysexual lyrics, activate concepts about sex, such that these listeners will weigh sex-ual appeal more heavily than other qualities in judging how attracted they wouldbe to someone? The following hypothesis was proposed:

H1: Criteria related to sexual appeal will contribute more so than other cri-teria to judgments of overall attraction to an ambiguous target individ-ual for people exposed to sexually suggestive, versus innocuous,music.

METHOD

Overview

Respondents were asked to participate in a study to evaluate Internet platforms.After evaluating some online news sites, the respondents sampled from a choiceof four popular music selections, ostensibly during a break, to clear their heads

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for the second Internet study. However, depending on the experimental group, themusic choices that were offered featured either suggestive or innocuous lyrics.After this break, respondents began the purported second study, evaluating per-sonal advertisements in an online dating service. After reading each ad, they ratedthe individual portrayed in the ad on various dimensions, including how muchthey would most likely be attracted to this person.

Respondents

Sixty students were recruited at a large German university. Half of the samplewas female. The average age was 21.7 years. About 50% reported that they wereeither dating or in a steady relationship. One respondent indicated after the ses-sion that his homosexual orientation would possibly intervene with the resultsand was, hence, replaced by another respondent. All participants received a smallpayment (5 DM, approximately $3.00 U.S.) for participating.

German participants were used, not only because of geographical convenienceto the researchers, but also because the literature on the social and global marketeffects of popular music worldwide suggests that more attention to media recep-tion outside the United States is needed (Colista & Leshner, 1998; De Rynck,1997). Specifically selecting German university students benefited the study intwo ways. First, these participants have a good command of the English lan-guage. English-language courses are a mandatory part of the German elementaryand secondary curriculum, along with reading, writing, science, and mathemat-ics. Therefore, all German students have a proven English language proficiencybefore entering the university level. Second, Germany represents the third largestmusic market in the world. German young adults consume about as much musicas their American counterparts, and a significant portion of this music tends to bein the English language (Bente & Feist, 2000; Bonfadelli, 1993; Boyd, 1983;Eichhorn & Keller, 1992; Eig & Roe, 1986; Hanke, 1990; Lazar, 1998;Muhlenfeld, 2002; Wood, 1979). In fact, the National Music Publishers’Association (2005) and Germany’s Federal Foreign Office (2005) both haveindicated that it has only been in the past decade that German music artists haveinfiltrated the market traditionally dominated by American and English artists.Thus, not only would German university students be able to understand overtlysexual words and messages, but they would be accustomed to listening to suchmedia fare, thanks to the influx of American music in their media market.

Stimulus Material

Music. Eight songs were chosen as stimulus material, with four songs pre-sented to each of the two experimental groups. In each condition, the musical

SUGGESTIVE MUSIC AND PERCEPTIONS OF ROMANTIC PARTNERS 5

selections were sung by two male and two female artists. Also in each condition,two of the songs were fast-paced and two songs had a somewhat slower tempo,thus providing parallel musical style for the two groups. To further reduce differ-ences between groups, each condition featured the same female and male artists.Their songs were taken from best-selling albums and singles, as substantiated bychart listings. Further investigation into chart listings indicated that these artistshad achieved a high level of familiarity, as well as substantial radio play.

The innocuous music condition featured Madonna’s “American Pie” rendi-tion, Janet Jackson’s “Better Days,” Tom Jones’ updated version of “Unusual,”and the Bloodhound Gang’s “Asleep at the Wheel.” The suggestive music condi-tion offered Madonna’s “Justify my Love” (orbit 12 mix), Janet Jackson’s“Would You Mind,” Tom Jones’ “Sex Bomb” (featuring Mousse T), and theBloodhound Gang’s “Mammals.” The starting lines of Janet Jackson’s “BetterDays” provide an example for innocuous lyrics: “I used to sit and wonder/WouldI ever be happy/Life was so bittersweet/So many disappointments/Too many upsand downs for me/When you live a nightmare/It’s hard to dream.” In contrast,Janet Jackson sang the following erotic lyrics in “Would You Mind”: “I justwanna/Kiss you, suck you, taste you, ride you/Feel you, make you cometoo/Baby would you mind coming inside of me/Letting your juices free/Deep inmy passion.”

Tom Jones’ lyrics provide another example of the difference between theinnocuous and suggestive lyric conditions. Whereas romantic longing is thetheme of “Unusual,” exemplified in the lines, “It’s not unusual to be mad withanyone/It’s not unusual to be sad with anyone/But if I ever find that you’vechanged at any time/It’s not unusual, to find that I’m in love with you,” TomJones sings of explicit sexual needs in his “Sexbomb” lyrics: “This bomb’s madefor lovin’ and you can shoot it far/I’m your main target come and help meignite/Love struck holding you tight/Make me explode although you know/theroute to go to sex me slow.”

As a precaution, the fast-paced songs featured upbeat but medium tempos,such that the lyrics were not spoken too quickly. In addition, the sexually sug-gestive songs were overtly sexual in nature, many times repeating the words sexor sexy throughout the song. According to the priming literature (e.g., Higginset al., 1977), exposure to a single word is sufficient to initiate a priming effect.Thus, the German respondents would not have to comprehend complex messagesin the music to experience a priming effect.

Personal advertisements. Three personal ads consisted of self-descrip-tions and categorized personal information provided by a fictitious target personlooking for romance on campus. Self-descriptions consisted of casual listing ofgeneric likes and dislikes (e.g., liking pizza and disliking people who lie). Eachad also provided the target person’s first name, gender, and relationship status

6 CARPENTIER, KNOBLOCH-WESTERWICK, BLUMHOFF

SUGGESTIVE MUSIC AND PERCEPTIONS OF ROMANTIC PARTNERS 7

FIGURE 1 Example of personal advertisement (translated into English) of ambiguouslydescribed target individual, male version. Female version shown in Figure 2 has a femininename in upper left corner, gender indicated as “F” for female, and height indicated as“Average.”

(always “single”). None of the ads featured photographs of the target person. Theads were written in German for external validity. As the Web site was purport-edly written by German university students for German consumption, it madelogical sense that these “authors” would write the text in their native language.

The software presented female respondents with ads written by fictitious tar-get men, whereas the male respondents reviewed ads written by fictitious targetwomen. Descriptions in each ad remained constant across respondent gender, inthat the text of the ads applied to target individuals of either gender. The onlyexception to this is that the word gal was replaced with the word guy in one ad’sself-description section. Otherwise, gender of the fictional target person wasmanipulated by choosing a typical masculine or feminine first name and indicat-ing gender in the “Sex” field listed among the categorical information. A“Looking For” category, under which the target person had selected “Passion”and “Romance,” rather than “Friendship” and “Pen Pal,” was displayed in anattempt to reinforce the role of the target person as a potential romantic partner.Ad credibility was reinforced via the instruction text (see previous discussion), a“Reply to Ad” button shown below each ad, a mailbox number, and a “LastUpdated” date that was always a few minutes after midnight of the current day.In addition, the personal description purportedly written by the target person wasin Courier typeface, whereas the categorical information was in Arial typeface.Figures 1 and 2 provide examples of the content of the first ad.

Measures

Respondents evaluated the purported writers of each personal ad using nine itemspresented under each ad on the computer screen. Each perception item appeared

alone and in succession beneath the respective ad, with each subsequent itemappearing once a response was entered for the previous item. Items followed thisformat: “Please give us your impressions of this person: How [item] do you thinkthis person is?”

Respondents responded on a scale ranging from 0 (not [item] at all) to 10(extremely [item]) by clicking the appropriate box. The specific items, bor-rowed from Zillmann and Bhatia (1989), were sensitive, assertive, sexy,dependable, aggressive, desirable, sincere, and impulsive. Both sexy anddesirable were assumed to relate most directly to sexual appeal, in comparisonto the other traits. Last, participants were asked the following: “If you were tomeet [first name], how much would you be attracted to [him/her]?”Respondents also rated this item on a scale from 0 (not at all attracted) to 10(extremely attracted).

Procedure

Participants were recruited on campus. Research sessions hosting between 10 and15 respondents were conducted in laboratories equipped with computers andhigh-quality headphones. Respondents operated their own computer and viewedonly their personal screens.

The procedure proper was fully automated, as all texts were presented viacomputer screen (text presented here from the experiment has been translated intoEnglish). First, participants entered their gender and age. Next, they werelaunched into the first study, in which they browsed through online news articlesranging from crime stories to economics and health. No sexual or romantic

8 CARPENTIER, KNOBLOCH-WESTERWICK, BLUMHOFF

FIGURE 2 Example of personal advertisement (translated into English) of ambiguouslydescribed target individual, female version. Male version shown in Figure 1 has a masculinename in the upper left corner, gender indicated as “M” for male, and height indicated as“Taller than Average.”

content was featured. After browsing, they evaluated the news on various news-worthiness dimensions, such as likelihood and time proximity of the reportedevents.

Introduction of music stimuli. On completion of the unrelated timed task,the respondents were instructed as follows:

You have now completed this study. Before we get to the next study included in thissession, you have a break of a few minutes to clear your head. Please remain seatedto keep the session quiet! Most people like to listen to some music during breaksbetween parts of a research session. So we usually store some popular music on thecomputer that participants can listen to. Click “Continue” to get to the music andlisten to whatever you like. [new screen] Please put on the headphones and adjustthem to your convenience.

Thereafter, the screen presented the text “Please feel free to listen towhatever you like. You can switch between songs any time” and showed fourbuttons linked to songs in individually randomized order. Respondents clickedon any song to begin the computerized break. After the scheduled 3½ minexpired, the software automatically moved on with the following instructiontext:

We come now to the next study included in this session. We’re interested in howpeople form perceptions from online information. You will be evaluating templatesfor an online dating service that is currently under development for this universityarea. Please read the following personal ads that we have taken from the service’sdatabase in order to evaluate them. Last names have been deleted to protect the peo-ple who submitted the ads; only the mailbox numbers associated with the ads areaccurate and active.

Introduction and evaluation of the personal ads. In a full-screen Webbrowser frame, a Web site titled Matchmaker.com was presented. The computerdisplayed the first of three personal advertisements at this time. After reading thepersonal ad, the respondent clicked on a “Move on” button, and the screenchanged, such that the browser frame reduced to about two thirds of the screenand questionnaire items were shown underneath the frame. When this ad wasevaluated via completion of the questions, the browser proceeded to the next ad.Viewing and evaluation of the second and third ads proceeded in the same man-ner as the first ad. Ads were presented in the same order for all participants. Afterall evaluations were complete, the respondents were debriefed about the fictitiousnature of the online content, in fulfillment of Institutional Review Board guide-lines and were thanked for their support of the research.

SUGGESTIVE MUSIC AND PERCEPTIONS OF ROMANTIC PARTNERS 9

RESULTS

Preliminary Analyses

Of the 60 participants, 14 women and 15 men were in the innocuous condition,and 16 women and 15 men were in the suggestive condition. Overall, participantsdid not show preferences for particular songs. This was determined by compar-ing exposure times to a particular song with a fourth of the scheduled 210 sec oflistening time (52.5 sec), which would be the amount of time a person could lis-ten to each of the four songs if that person devoted equal listening time to allselections (t < 1).

A preliminary analysis of variance (ANOVA) analyzed possible influences ofrespondent gender and condition on preferred artist gender to identify anygender-siding effects. No effects were observed for respondent gender or for thegender–condition interaction on singer preference, F(1, 56) < 1 for both. A smallmain effect was seen for condition, F(1, 56) = 4.13, p < .05. Participants in thesexually suggestive condition listened more to female (+23 sec) than male artists,whereas participants in the innocuous condition listened more to male (+44 sec)than female singers. Further analyses yielded no main or interaction effects forsinger preference.

For each of the eight characteristic ratings, a mixed-measures ANOVAexamined effects of condition (innocuous, suggestive) by gender (male,female) by personal ad (repeated measure) on that rating. The single-itemratings included sensitive, assertive, sexy, dependable, aggressive, desirable,sincere, and impulsive (see Table 1 for means and standard deviations of rat-ings for each ad). No condition main effects, condition by gender interactions,or three-way interaction effects were found, Fs < 1 for all ANOVAs. Genderhad a main effect only on ratings of aggressive, F(1, 56) = 5.25, p < .05, andsincere, F(1, 56) = 2.89, p < .10, characteristics. Men gave higher aggressive-ness (M = 4.13, SD = .25) and marginally higher sincerity (M = 6.48, SD = .19)ratings to their ambiguous female targets than did women rating ambiguousmale targets (M = 3.32, SD = .25 for aggressive and M = 6.01, SD = .19 forsincere).

Personal ad influenced all but the aggressive ratings either as a main effector in interaction with either condition or gender. There appeared to be no con-sistent pattern in how certain ads influenced ratings. Order effects were alsoanalyzed in response to the differing influences of the ads on ratings. Perhapsbecause each ad related to ratings differently, no consistent order effect wasfound (F < 1). However, because there were unexplained differences in howratings were given depending on the personal ad, further analyses treated eachad independently.

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Priming Effects of Sexually Suggestive Music on Heterosexual Attraction

Hotelling’s t test for nonnested correlations was used to evaluate whether sexu-ally suggestive, versus innocuous, music primed the concept of sexual appealsuch that sexy and desirable ratings were stronger contributors than other ratingsto the overall judgment of how attractive the ambiguous target was to the respon-dent. For each of the three personal ads, sexy and desirable characteristic ratingswere combined to indicate an overall sexual appeal criterion. The remaining sixratings of sensitive, assertive, dependable, aggressive, sincere, and impulsivewere considered the “other” criteria.

Partial correlations were obtained to assess the relation between the sexualappeal criterion and each overall attraction evaluation, irrespective of the relationbetween overall evaluations and the other criteria. This was done for each per-sonal ad presented in both the sexually suggestive and innocuous conditions. Asa result, six partial correlations were obtained (see Table 2), indicating the rela-tive importance of sexual appeal in making judgments based on whether respon-dents heard music featuring overt sexual content or no sexual content.

Then, for each personal ad, the partial correlations for that ad were comparedacross condition with a one-tailed Hotelling’s t test for nonnested correlations. Thisanalyzed whether the relation between sexual appeal and the overall evaluation wassignificantly stronger in the suggestive condition than in the innocuous condition.Table 2 shows that, for the first and third personal ads, sexual appeal correlated withoverall attraction evaluations significantly more in the suggestive than the

SUGGESTIVE MUSIC AND PERCEPTIONS OF ROMANTIC PARTNERS 11

TABLE 1Means and Standard Deviations for Each Characteristic Rating

in Each Personal Ada

First Ad Second Ad Third Ad

Rating M SD M SD M SD

Sensitive 5.10 2.33 5.05 1.75 6.42 2.26Assertive 6.00 2.03 5.33 2.01 4.57 2.05Sexy 4.72 2.30 4.85 2.22 4.00 2.21Dependable 4.60 2.00 5.15 1.75 6.13 2.08Aggressive 3.68 1.84 3.93 1.93 3.58 1.94Desirable 4.32 2.21 4.95 2.16 4.25 2.41Sincere 6.12 1.87 6.18 1.77 6.43 1.74Impulsive 6.28 2.00 5.48 1.94 4.57 1.86Overall attracted 4.10 2.38 4.45 1.97 4.08 2.79

aN = 60.

innocuous condition. This is in support of the hypothesis. Statistical significancewas not reached for the second personal ad. However, the difference for this secondad was in the predicted direction and of similar magnitude to the other two ads.

Various multicollinearity diagnostics obtained for each personal ad found themulticollinearity assumptions to be within acceptable parameters. Tolerance lev-els ranged between .35 and .85 (M = .61). The highest variance inflation factorwas a low 2.85 (M = 1.74). Correlations between variables varied according topersonal ad, although sexy and desirable correlated consistently and with thehighest coefficient (.71 < r < .87, p < .01).

To explore the possible influence of gender on judgments of attraction, a seriesANOVAs and regression analyses were run using gender as an independent fac-tor and attraction as the main dependent variable. No appreciable variation wasfound (Fs < 1) in these analyses.

DISCUSSION

This investigation sought to determine if exposure to sexually provocative popu-lar music could act as a prime, activating sexual concepts and influencing judg-ments of seemingly unrelated ambiguous individuals. Results of this study lendsupport to this proposal. Respondents who listened to the sexually charged musicevaluated personal-advertisement submitters with a heavier emphasis on sexualappeal, in comparison to those respondents listening to the nonsexual selections.This is evidence of a classic media priming effect, in which a stimulus activatescertain concepts that become more important when making judgments unrelatedto the stimulus. Additional research into the influences of time passage on theseeffects would provide further information about the potential for lyrics to eitherprime concepts or activate mental models that inform and influence a person’sjudgment making during a romantic encounter (Roskos-Ewoldsen, et al., 2002).

Interestingly, these effects were demonstrated with nonnative English speak-ers. One might surmise that these listeners may have expended more cognitive

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TABLE 2Differential Contribution of Sexual Appeal Characteristics in Judging Overall Attraction to

Potential Partners by Exposure to Innocuous Versus Sexually Suggestive Lyrics

Partial r of Sexual Appeal Characteristics

Innocuous Condition Suggestive Condition t

First ad .60 .68 1.66*Second ad .58 .68 1.25Third ad .55 .66 2.43**

*p < .05. **p = .01, one-tailed Hotelling’s t test for nonnested correlations.

effort in comprehending the lyrics. This might even lead to greater attention to themessages. However, one could also presume that these listeners only caught thesimplest messages referring to sex, missing the nuances and innuendos also fea-tured in the songs. In effect, this less comprehensive intake might have resultedin a purer activation of concepts related to sexual appeal, thus enhancing theinfluence of the suggestive music on later judgments. This would be in line withearlier priming research that observed the ability of single words and simple sen-tences to activate concepts that later influenced unrelated judgments. Yet anotherexplanation may be that increased familiarity with a song might result in the acti-vation of other concepts or the conjuring of memories, all of which may over-shadow the basic priming effect observed here. Thus, the effect that familiaritymay have on these results also warrants further study.

This study is limited in that, although the sample of students represented alarger body of German young adults who are heavily exposed to English-language music, the respondents’ comprehension of the music lyrics featured inthis study was not directly tested. Therefore, although the hypothesized effectswere observed here, it is not certain exactly how the songs were interpreted. Inaddition, neither familiarity nor enjoyment of the songs were assessed, both ofwhich could potentially influence the observed effects. Additional research isneeded to explore some of the conditions and individual differences that mayaffect the influence of sexually charged pop music on judgments.

With regard to gender effects, this investigation did not yield differences inpriming effects based on singer preference. However, it did show a gender pref-erence in artist selection related to whether the songs were either filled with ordevoid of sexually suggestive messages. Musical preference would undoubtedlyaffect the choice to listen to a song, thus controlling the first step that determinesthe degree of almost any media effect—that of selective exposure.

Another curious gender effect was in the characteristic ratings of aggressive-ness and sincerity, regardless of personal ad or condition. It is conceivable thatmen gave higher aggressiveness ratings than women because, either due to intrin-sic or social influences, men typically show more aggressive tendencies andenjoy more aggressive stimuli than women. This tendency may have manifesteditself in this study, in which men included aggressiveness in their overall assess-ments of potential romantic partners more so than their female counterparts.More puzzling is that men gave slightly higher sincerity ratings than women. Thiseffect was only marginal, which suggests that it may be more a function of sam-ple size than a consistent effect. However, future studies may wish to draw morefrom personality and relationship literature in an attempt to understand this effect,were it to arise again.

Finally, although sexual appeal criteria had elevated importance in the sug-gestive, as opposed to innocuous, condition, these criteria were strong contribu-tors in both conditions. This implies that, at least for this age group, sexual appealis naturally salient when judging a potential partner—and in an unseen partner, as

SUGGESTIVE MUSIC AND PERCEPTIONS OF ROMANTIC PARTNERS 13

this investigation presented ambiguous descriptions without pictures. The empha-sis on these more racy characteristics in judging unseen peers raises legitimateconcerns regarding person perception, especially in a media-saturated society inwhich blind dating and Internet relationships are on the rise (Jones, 2002;McCown, Fischer, Page, & Homant, 2001).

The additional possibility that this emphasis can be exacerbated by song lyricscould have serious implications for social interaction, especially in venues thatregularly feature suggestive music fare. Impressions and interactions may bebased more on sex than would otherwise be in an environment in which sexualmessages were not being pumped through speakers as continuous background.On the Internet, where users engage in chat-room discussions, e-mail, or othersocial activities in which there is high interpersonal interaction, simultaneousmusic exposure can be even more powerful in influencing first impressions orguiding the tone of an online chat session. Because these users do not have theluxury of nonverbal feedback or visual cues, some users may use the lyrics theyare hearing to “fill in the gaps,” thus interpreting the textual conversations in away that may not be accurate. In addition, suggestive songs may put users in amore sexually focused mood, and the somewhat ambiguous nature of the Internetmay grant a feeling of permission and safety under which to explore relationshipavenues that the user might not pursue in a face-to-face context. As more infor-mation is gathered, perhaps the music industry, parent groups, government agen-cies, and media outlets can make more informed decisions about when, and whatkind, of music to air. On a broader scale, more information is needed to evaluateother media, such as Internet ads and video games, which could similarly influ-ence the judgments and interactions of young adults. At the very least, it wouldbehoove young adults to be cognizant of the potential influences their mediaenvironment may have on forming first impressions.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The reported research was supported by a scholarship of the CapstoneInternational Studies Program from the University of Alabama.

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