Effects of sexual media essays

Effects of sexual media essays In order to analyze the effects the sexual media has on an individual, one must understand social cognitive theory, cultivation theory, and priming theory. These theories provide those who attempt to study the sexual media, the tools needed to uncover the ways in which the sexual media affects our behavior, beliefs, attitudes and emotions. In looking at these theories, one must consider the type of effect the theory is concerned with, the process that leads to these effects, and the features of the sexual media that enhances these effects. The social cognitive theory, which stems from the observational learning theory, is concerned with explaining behavior. More specifically, in terms of the sexual media, this theory outlines the steps by which an individual models their own behavior after the sexual media they are exposed to. For example, the number of sexual partners and individual chooses to have, the age at which they decide to have sex, or whether or not one chooses to practice safe sex are all behaviors that could possibly be learned or altered through sexual media exposure. There are four steps in the observational learning-attention, retention, production, and motivation. If one is able to carry out all four steps this will lead to matching the behavior exhibited in the sexual media. The social cognitive view on observational learning, "is more concerned with the process involved in the representational guidance of action than with the particular medium by which response information is conveyed. The theory seeks to explain how or why the cognitive processes in our mind take representations of behavior in the sexual media and convert them into behavior. Learning occurs when an individual is exposed to modeled events before any responses have been preformed and does not necessarily require intrinsic reward. Not all behavior that an individual is exposed to is necessarily modeled. The specific behavior m...