Sociosexual orientation and multitasking influence the effect of sexual media content on involvement with a sexual character

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether responses to sexual media depend on personal and situational factors. Specifically, we studied the role of sociosexual orientation (i.e., personal factor) and multitasking (i.e., situational factor) in the effects of sexual media content on involvement with the character, a concept that has received increasing attention as an explanation of the emergence of sexual media effects. Sociosexually restricted and unrestricted female participants watched a neutral or erotic scene. Half of the participants in the neutral and sex condition had to multitask (a tone detection task) during viewing the scene. In the sex condition, sociosexually unrestricted participants were more involved with the main character than sociosexually restricted participants. Multitasking resulted in opposite patterns of involvement with the sexual character; unrestricted participants became less involved, whereas restricted participants became less uninvolved with the sexual character.