Men’s Emotion Regulation Flexibility and Sexual Assault Perpetration

Despite efforts to understand its causes, many young men engage in sexual assault perpetration. Underlying emotion regulation (ER) is one well-established inhibitor of sexual assault perpetration, as are certain profiles of in-the-moment ER strategies. However, ER flexibility has not been examined within this context. In this study, 187 young, single, sexually active men from the United States completed questionnaires, projected themselves into anger-inducing and sexually arousing sexual scenarios, and indicated their intentions to perpetrate after their partner withdrew consent. ER flexibility was assessed by participants' use of different ER strategies across these two scenarios. Two-way interactions between ER flexibility and men's underlying ER difficulties and between ER flexibility and the in-the-moment ER profiles they used during the sexual situations were examined as predictors of previous sexual assault, and intentions to perpetrate, respectively. Reporting inflexible ER and high ER difficulties was associated with greater past perpetration, and those with inflexible ER who fit a "low acting with awareness, moderate others" ER profile were more likely to report intentions to perpetrate sexual assault, suggesting that ER flexibility may inhibit sexual assault perpetration. Future research should replicate these results in more sexually diverse samples and develop and evaluate ER flexibility interventions.