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Sex Roles (2007) 57:145157 DOI 10.1007/s11199-007-9225-1
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Athletic Participation, Fraternity Membership, and Sexual Aggression Among College Men: A Meta-analytic Review
Sarah K. Murnen & Marla H. Kohlman
Published online: 23 May 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract A meta-analysis of the data relating either college athletic participation or fraternity membership to attitudes and behaviors associated with sexual aggression was conducted with 29 studies which yielded 57 effect sizes. Membership in each male group was associated to a moderate extent with rape-supportive attitudes, and to a smaller extent with self-report of sexually aggressive behavior. There was much variability in the data that could be partially predicted by variables such as the size of the college, the validity of the study, and the age of the research participants. The involvement of these all-male groups in the perpetuation of hypermasculine attitudes (Mosher and Sirkin 1984) in a patriarchal culture was discussed.
Keywords Athletes . Fraternities . Rape
There has been much national attention focused upon the possible connections between team sports and sexual aggression as a form of male bonding because two Duke University lacrosse team members were indicted for the alleged rape of a female stripper in March, 2006. This case is representative of other news reports that suggest that all male groups are disproportionately associated with the perpetration of sexual violence. Researchers on many college campuses have studied the association between participation in either athletics or fraternities and the self-report of
attitudes and behaviors associated with sexual violence. Many studies reveal positive associations between participation in these all-male groups and sexual aggression, but some do not. The purpose of the present study was to statistically aggregate the data through meta-analysis to determine the strength and consistency of the relationship between athletic participation and indices of sexual aggression, as well as between fraternity membership and sexual aggression. Not only does meta-analysis allow for the examination of an overall effect size, but it allows one to test whether particular features of the samples predict variation in the size of the association across studies.
With respect to news reports of the association between all-male groups and sexual aggression, the Duke situation is not an isolated one. Within the last year alone a number of...