Previous research has shown that male college athletes are more likely than college students in general to commit sexual violence or engage in sexual coercion. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education called for colleges and universities to institute efforts to educate athletes and address sexual violence.
"We wanted to know what these programs need to address," says Sarah Desmarais, an associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University and co-author of a paper on the recent study. "What are the factors that contribute to these higher rates of sexual assault? And are these issues confined to intercollegiate athletes, or do they extend to club and intramural athletes?"
For this study, the researchers surveyed online 379 male undergraduates: 191 non-athletes, 29 intercollegiate athletes and 159 recreational athletes. The study was conducted by researchers at NC State, the University of South Florida, Northern Arizona University and Emory University.
Study participants were asked about their sexual behavior, their attitudes toward women, and the degree to which they believed in rape myths.
"We found that 54.3 percent of the intercollegiate and recreational athletes and 37.9 percent of non-athletes had engaged in sexually coercive behaviors - almost all of which met the legal definition of rape," Desmarais says.
Comment: When any society becomes saturated with psychopaths, their depraved inner nature and "values" spread throughout the culture: