MUSIC PREFERENCE, PARENTAL MONITORING AND GENDER AS FACTORS IN ADOLESCENTS’ SEXUAL PERMISSIVENESS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title page                                                                                                                       i

Certification                                                                                                                  ii

Dedication                                                                                                         iii

Acknowledgment                                                                                         iv

Table of contents                                                                                                         v

List of tables                                                                                             vi

Abstract                                                                                                       vii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION                                                                     

Introduction                                                                                                                  1

Statement of the problem                                                                           13

Purpose of the study                                                                                     14

Operational definition of terms                                                           14

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

THEORETICAL REVIEW                                                                                       16

Social Learning Theory                                                                                16

Cultivation Theory                                                                              18

Cognitive Dissonance Theory                                                                           20

EMPIRICAL REVIEW

Music preference and adolescent’s sexual permissiveness                      21

Parental monitoring and adolescent’s sexual permissiveness           24

Gender and adolescent’s sexual permissiveness                                  26

Summary of the literature review                                                                 28

Hypothesis                                                                                              29

CHAPTER THREE: METHOD

Participants                                                                                         31

Instrument                                                                                                    31

Procedure                                                                                           34

Design/Statistics                                                                                      34

CHAPTER FOUR

Result                                                                                             35

CHAPTER FIVE

Discussion                                                                                               40

Implication of the findings                                                                      44

Summary and conclusion                                                                   45

Limitation of the study                                                                                 45

Recommendations                                                                              46

REFERENCES                                                                                                            48

APPENDIXES

Abstract

This study was a survey aimed at ascertaining whether music preference, parental monitoring and gender are factors in adolescent sexual permissiveness. A sample of 405 adolescents were drawn from three secondary schools within Igbo-Eze South Local Government Area, Enugu State. Three instruments were used in the data collection. They include: Sexual Permissiveness Scale (SPS), Music Preference Scale (MPS) and Parental Monitoring Measure (PMM). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the data collected. Three research hypotheses were postulated and tested. The findings showed that music preference was a significant factor in adolescent’s sexual permissiveness F (1, 388) = 13.81, P <.001. Parental monitoring and gender were not significant factors in adolescent sexual permissiveness.  However, the interaction between music preference and parental monitoring yielded a significant factor F(1, 388) = 8.08, P <.01. The interaction between Parental monitoring and gender yielded a significant interaction F(1, 388) = 11.25, P < .001.  The implications of the findings were discussed focusing on the dangers of exposure of adolescents to sexually provocative music.  Recommendations were made for provision of relevant education, as well as sexual health services to parents, adolescents, and other relevant bodies.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Technological advancement and urbanization has turned the world into a global community.  This trend brought about social changes in the society and to our social lives. As a result of this, there is a tremendous increase in the level of neglect and breakdown of moral values, especially among adolescents. Today, sexual permissiveness has become a characteristic of the social life of adolescents such that it has raised a lot of concern about adolescents’ behaviours in connection with sexual matters.

Petigny (1965) defined sexual permissiveness as the freedom to take part in sexual activities which were previously considered unacceptable or freedom to view violent and sexually provocative materials including movies, music, art and literature. Hornby (2010) defined sexual permissiveness as allowing or showing a freedom of sexual behaviours and matters that many people do not approved of. On that note, one could simply define sexual permissiveness to be toleration of a wide variety of sexual behaviours and attitudes. It could also be defined as the granting or inclination to grant permission; tolerance or lenience towards sex or ideas of sex or to have sex. High prevalence rate of sexual activities among adolescents is likely to lead to an increase in teenage pregnancy, school dropout, academic under achievement, abortions, unplanned motherhood and maternal mortality, as well as infection with sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. Onyeonoru and Adeboyejo (2007) posit that sexual experiences are more common among adolescents and that the age of first sexual experience is declining. They stated that this could be because there is now a higher prevalence of adolescents experiencing early sexual activity. Most often, it happens that the society do frown at these adolescents due to the series of problems they face.