The Influence of Sex and Violence on the Appeal of Rock Music Videos

Abstract

Two experiments examined the effects of sex and violence in rock music videos on viewers' judgments of the appeal of the music and visuals and emotional responses to the videos. The effects of videos with high, moderate, or low visual sex content were compared in Experiment 1. Positive emotions and the appeal of both the music and visuals were found to be positively related to the level of sexual content. In Experiment 2, the effects of videos with high, moderate, and low levels of visual violence content indicated that negative emotional responses and reduced appeal of both the music and the visuals were related to the level of violence. Evidence was obtained from both experiments that the combination of sex and violence also decreased appeal. In addition, music arousal was found to have an effect on appeal. More arousing music was positively related to appeal and positive emotions in sexy videos, but its influence was found to be independent of visual sex. In violent videos, however, music arousal was associated with decreased appeal and negative emotions and appeared to result from the “transfer” of excitation from the arousing music to the violence of the visual content.