Rap Music Linked to Sexism

RALEIGH, N.C., Feb. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- That's the conclusion of a
North Carolina State University study that examined rap music's effects on
sexist attitudes among college students. Many critics claim that rap music
causes sexist beliefs, but the study's authors suggest the connection they
found between rap and sexism is unlikely to be a direct cause-and-effect.

"It's like hearing the word 'chocolate' and suddenly having a craving for a
candy bar," says Dr. Michael Cobb, assistant professor of political science,
who conducted the study along with Dr. Bill Boettcher, associate professor of
political science.

Cobb and Boettcher's findings -- titled "Ambivalent Sexism and Misogynistic
Rap Music: Does Exposure to Eminem Increase Sexism?" -- were recently
published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

The study found that college students who were asked to listen to rap music
had significantly higher levels of reported sexism. In the study, males who
listened to any rap music were more sexist than those in the control group
even though sometimes the rap lyrics did not include sexist language. Females
in the study also reported higher levels of sexism when rap music was not
sexist in its language, but their endorsement of sexist beliefs was the lowest
after listening to rap with overtly sexist language.

"Sexism is imbedded in the culture we live in, and hearing rap music can
spontaneously activate pre-existing awareness of sexist beliefs," Cobb says.
"We feel it's unlikely that hearing lyrics in a song creates attitudes that
did not previously exist. Instead, rap music, fairly or unfairly, has become
associated with misogyny, and even minimal exposure to it can automatically
activate these mental associations and increase their application, at least
temporarily."

To measure the association between rap and sexism, students were recruited to
take part in a study and were randomly assigned to one of three experimental
conditions. In the control group, students' levels of sexism were measured,
but they did not listen to any music. A second condition required students to
listen to non-sexist rap music, while a third required them to listen to a rap
song with explicitly sexist language. In these two conditions, students'
levels of sexism were measured after listening to the music, but they were
unaware of the true purpose of the study.

Participants in the group assigned to listen to rap with sexist lyrics heard
the song Kill You by Eminem, which describes hostility and violence toward
women. The group listening to rap with non-sexist lyrics heard Sabotage by the
Beastie Boys, a song that has a similar rhythm to Kill You, but is devoid of
overt sexist lyrics.

As expected, males were more sexist across all three conditions.
Surprisingly, however, Cobb and Boettcher found that sexist attitudes among
respondents also increased after exposure to rap that contained no sexist
lyrics.

"Rap music may be associated with sexist attitudes and beliefs, regardless of
the actual lyrical content," Cobb says. "So non-sexist rap can now have sexist
implications. This gets back to our hypothesis that we don't think rap music
causes sexism, because how can rap that contains non-sexist lyrics cause
someone to become sexist?"

According to Cobb, "the key to understanding why women rejected sexism only
after listening to Eminem is motivated self-awareness. In the absence of
explicitly sexist language, the negative associations with rap music are still
being primed. In this case, however, the receiver is unaware that this
process is taking place and therefore makes no attempt to inhibit their
reactions. When women listened to Eminem, however, the blatant misogyny is
startling to them and it triggers a more careful interpretation and rejection
of the premises in the song. Males, who were not the targets of Eminem's ire
in the song, are not as motivated to recognize the mechanisms at work."

The findings that listeners to both kinds of rap music had higher levels of
sexist attitudes than those in the control group, particularly males, is a
cause for concern, Cobb says, but it is a concern that also calls for more
research into understanding the relationship between the origins of music and
the expressed attitudes.

"Priming latent sexism is not the same thing as causing it," Cobb says. "At
worst, we could conclude that rap music might exacerbate pre-existing
tendencies, but so too can other genres of music and varied forms of
entertainment. There is not much evidence in our study to support an argument
in favor of censorship."

This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise(TM). For more information,
visit http://www.newswise.com.

SOURCE North Carolina State University

Chad Austin, News Services, +1-919- 515-3470, chad_austin@ncsu.edu; Dr.
Michael Cobb, +1-919-513-3709, mike_cobb@ncsu.edu; or Dr. Bill Boettcher,
+1-919-515-5096, william_boettcher@ncsu.edu, all of North Carolina State
University