Dating Aggression, Sexual Coercion, and Aggression-Supporting Attitudes Among College Men as a Function of Participation in Aggressive High School Sports

Aggressive male sports have been criticized as bastions of sexism and training grounds for aggression against women, but there have been few empirical demonstrations of these alleged relationships. The authors studied self-reported dating aggression and sexual coercion in 147 college men. Men who had participated in aggressive high school sports, as compared with other men, engaged in more psychological aggression, physical aggression, and sexual coercion toward their dating partners, caused their partners more physical injury, were more accepting of violence, had more sexist attitudes and hostility toward women, were more accepting of rape myths, and were less tolerant of homosexuality. Results indicate that participation in aggressive high school sports is one of the multiple developmental pathways leading to relationship violence.