Development and construct validation of a measure of attitudes toward public exposure to sexual stimuli

Developed a brief, reliable, and valid measure of attitudes toward public exposure to sexual stimuli. Both advocates and opponents of public exposure to such stimuli typically cite presumed effects upon children. Consequently many of the Likert format items in the several versions of the scale deal with prescriptive and prescriptive beliefs about the exposure of children to sex related stimuli. Over a three-year period five different groups of respondents participated in the study. Both the longer and the shorter versions of the scale administered to these groups appear to have acceptable reliabilities. In an attempt to provide construct validation information, the relationships between the Acceptance of Public Sexuality Scale and several measures of traditionalism were examined. As expected, scores on the scale were inversely related to measures of traditionalism and positively related to measures of modernity Possible uses of the scale were discussed.