Adolescents’ Remembering of Sexual Television Narratives and Their Relations with Positive Sexuality Components: A Biographic Resonance Perspective

ABSTRACTLittle to no knowledge exists about television’s role in the sexual socialization of adolescents from the perspective of remembrance and resonance of narratives dealing with sexuality. The current study aims to fill this gap in the literature by using three-wave data of 703 respondents (51.5% assigned female at birth, M age = 15.44; SD = 1.43). We explored reciprocal relations between adolescents’ remembrance of resonating positive and negative messages included in sexual narratives on television and their positive sexuality components (e.g. sexual self-acceptance). Structural equation modeling showed that a respectful approach to different sexual expressions was related to the remembering of negative sexual television messages five months later. No other significant relations were found. Further, no differences were found based on adolescents’ sexual experiences. The findings are discussed in the realm of the potential of using the biographic resonance theory (BRT) of eudaimonic entertainment media to further explore the socializing potential of sexual television narratives.DisclaimerAs a service to authors and researchers we are providing this version of an accepted manuscript (AM). Copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proofs will be undertaken on this manuscript before final publication of the Version of Record (VoR). During production and pre-press, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal relate to these versions also. Disclosure StatementWe have no known conflict of interest to disclose.Figure 1. Hypothesized Model.Note. RP = remembrance of positive sexual messages, RN = remembrance of negative sexual messages, SA = sexual self-acceptance, PA= positive approach to sexual relationships, RA = respectful approach to different sexual expressions.Display full sizeFigure 2. Parameter Estimates of the Hypothesized Model.Display full sizeNote. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001. PR = remembrance of positive sexual messages, NR = remembrance of negative sexual messages, SA = sexual self-acceptance, PA= positive approach to sexual relationships, RA = respectful approach to different sexual expressions. Coefficients represent standardized betas. For clarity, measurement parts, in-wave correlations, and residual variances are not shown.Notes1 The model adjusted for demographic variability also showed an acceptable model fit, χ2 (1,290) = 2,900.86, p < .001, RMSEA = .04, CFI = .90, TLI = .88, SRMR = .08. Similar results as in the parsimonious model emerged..Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds under grant number C14/18/017