Zoe Brown
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Terri Conley
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 7 (4:40pm – 5:30pm)
Authors: Terri Conley, Julia Smoot, Zoe Brown, Eva Harden
Abstract
Sex guilt is generally defined as a negative emotional response of guilt surrounding a sexual experience. Typically, it is measured using the Mosher Sex Guilt Inventory. However, this study calls into question whether the Mosher Sex Guilt Inventory measures guilt, a state of being, or conservatism, a more constant trait of thought. Another related scale is the Contemporary Sex Guilt scale, which is a definite sex guilt scale. Another related scale is the Sexual Liberalism Scale, which is a true measure of sexual conservatism/liberalism. This study aims to compare various measures of sex guilt using a surveying technique. We first had participants primed with either a neutral scenario or a guilt, sex-related scenario. Then, the participants took an online survey, which asked questions from the various scales listed above. The guilt prime impacted participants on the Contemporary Sex Guilt scale, but not on the Mosher Sex Guilt Inventory. If the Mosher Sex Guilt Inventory was a true measure of sex guilt, the guilt prime should have had a similar impact on the responses for both scales. The Mosher Sex Guilt Inventory is used in thousands of papers, cited as a measure for sex guilt. This finding has a huge impact on the validity of these research projects.
