It IS possible there might be an association in people's heads between rap music and misogyny, but it's also possible there's something slightly wrong with this study. How big was it? How sound was it?

The study as you've described it seems to suggest that a certain style of music supports or increases certain attitudes, regardless of what the lyrics or messages are. Doesn't that mean we should censor all rap music, not just Eminem? How can we support that position?

I'm confused about this. Misogyny in rap music is bad, but I'm not convinced this study really shows us how it works or what we should do about it.

It is interesting how there is somekind of prejudice against rap and hiphop music.

There are many things on this study that I need to know before reaching to my personal conclusion, but, the question I let you is, have any of the people who reached to these conclusions ever heard other his lyrics by him? The ones against war? The ones criticizing female exposion? The ones criticizing family abuse and violence?

I most certainly believe that the conclusions tend to the truth, but isn't it just a narrowed analysis of reality?
And, yes, we should be careful with Eminem's songs and our children: no doubt on that! But I've learned we could be a good instrument with the connecting of our younger patients!

Thank you for the post and the news!

The study detailed here is minus, well, a few details.

I would like to point out that in any instance of correlation between music and the baser instincts of a society, considering the root of the problem means examining the society first. We can't definitively say that mysoginistic rap music creates mysoginistic teenage boys. What we do understand about the group dynamic is how important it is for the individual to identify with its constituents. By this, I mean that music doesn't make bad kids. Instead, music elucidates the ideals of a particular group, and music serves to perpetuate these ideals by coercing audiences to believe a common concept strengthens the ability of the concept to be right (or at least, acceptable.)

That said, rap music gets a bad rap. Not because it's bad music but because it perpetuates concepts that are decidedly questionable. The key point of this study I'd like to highlight is the fact that the survey method is so subjective that it does not fairly convey the actual psyche of the participants. Instead, it elucidates what they were thinking at a precise moment in time precisely after listening to mysoginistic music. Similar tests point out how just hearing the words "judge" caused test participants to behave more fairly.

What does that mean? That we should all walk aroudn listening to vocabulary words that are positive so that we respond more positively? Or that listening to rap music makes us respond more negatively when we listen to negative lyrics? Conscientuousness is key here. And this study is admittedly flawed.

I think science needs to give this one another (unbiased) try.

I agree with the comments that this study (as any study) represents a very narrow view of a very controlled reality. To me the study illustrates some kind of cognitive association between misogyny and rap music that is probably best explained by culture. I want to thank Anonymous for bringing up the point of social identification -- in my opinion, that was probably playing a huge role in the findings in this study. Music isn't just about what people find pleasing to the ear, music is also about culture and people often use music as a way of expressing to the world who they are and who they'd like to be. The culture of rap is far more complex than just misogyny, although that is sometimes an unfortunate part of some artists' identities. Part of the association may also lie in the type of rap music most people are exposed to. Some of the people in the study undoubtedly were only familiar with the perception of rap music depicted in mainstream media. As I mentioned in my post, the media love controversy. I am aware of the large underground movement of rap music that deliberately espouses positivity in its lyrics--and that its fairly popular.

There is a show on MTV that chronicles the life of rapper Snoop Dog as a husband and father. On the show he acts with respect towards his wife and attempts to teach his kids to also be respectful of others.

In a way this portrayal of a man vastly different then the "thug" he proclaims to be in his music, gives credence to the idea that music is just entertainment and that people are perfectly capable of seperating themselves from lyrics, even lyrics they themselves wrote.

Yet, Snoop Dog is a grown man and the effect rap lyrics have on young boys may be more penatrating. I also clearly remember being aware of my parents own few hypocrisys and using these to justify my actions.
I wonder how Snoop Dog will explain some of his lyrics to his children. They will notice that he teaches them one thing yet makes money off an opposing lesson. Lyrics from "Ain't no Fun", come to mind. In one part of the song, Snoop asserts in reference to a woman:

"...there's nothing else to do with it. I pass it to my homie, now you hit it. Cause she ain't nothing but a b*&ch to me and ya'll know that B*&ch's ain't sh*& to me."

I admittedly find the song catchy but it disturbs me when I notice myself singing those lyrics. Like violence on TV, it becomes habitualized. We live in a world where seeing someone's head blown off doesn't even cause a shiver and women being called hos sounds everyday. Pretty sad if you ask me.

First, there should not be any censorship (obviously). Second, would we be having the same discussion if the ultra-violent bigotry discussed was racist rather than misogynistic? Do we perceive white power music as simply a "parenting" issue? Of course not because racism, let alone glorifying murderous racism, is wrong regardless of age and having any person that subscribes to a culture that celebrates such open racism is dangerous to our society. "Blackface" entertainment during the Jim Crow era was legal and it would remain so today (as it should) but without question the cultural normalization of vicious anti-black attitudes contributed to the acceptance, if not defense, of hate crimes against blacks during that time.

Eminem is a bigot (homophobia, misogyny) and the fact so many people make excuses for him (e.g., he had a horrible mother, it's all an act, his feelings are hurt, it's "art" and thus incapable of being wrong, etc.) is a damning statement about our society.

Again, no censorship, but I do wish as a society we would take the issue of misogynistic bigotry seriously. The fact we don't indicates how little we think of the basic human rights and civil liberties of women and girls.

Why Does Everything Have To Be Violent? It Aint The rappers. Why Do You Have To Get In to It? Leave It Alone. since I Have Been Listening to Eminem I Have Become Less Violent Not More.

LEAVE IT ALONE

From

There is an empathy effect that all effective public speaker know about.

You can says things in such a way as to draw the listen on to your point of view.

We do this mentally to put our selves in the other person's shoes.

We have a range of attitudes to various subjects and when they overlap somewhat we can consider the person's viewpoint better, especially if it feeds us our own prejudices first.

However the other effect is to repulse us when the viewpoint is so foreign to our world that we can find know overlap.

Does listening to rap music make us racist or misogynistic? No we already were to some extent. They just push a little farther with an often temporary bit of empathy.

Maybe with enough of the same message over and over and no alternative view it could push us farther, but it cannot work for everyone. But it cannot make us do something were were not already prone to do ultimately.

Merely anecdotal, yet probably of value: I have always intuitively observed an inverse association between the degree to which a boy was enculturated as a functional "Man" and the degree to which violent/misogynist music interested him. The guys who blasted the rap the loudest were the guys whose identities suffered the least support. And the music very obviously empowered them. I believe that this society has neglected its culture of Manhood and many young males are struggling to feel positive about aspects of themselves that they do not know how to deal with. Thus they resort to lyrical visions of power and oppression with themselves as masters. And to be fair, civilization contains an implicit level of disdain for testosterone. The capacity to aggression that, presumably, once benefited our species is now obsolete and every civilized male bears this conflict somewhere within him.
While the study illustrates some causation in the direction of music influencing attitudes, I am going to go out on a limb and hypothesize that the greater causative value will be observed in the attitudes that bring young males to antisocial rap music in the first place.
I will further conjecture that a stronger culture of functional, pro-social masculinity would dry up much of the fuel to these flames.

Re the study, and in addition to other points: How was 'misogyny' defined, either in Eminem's lyrics or the respondent's answers? That's a big issue full of instabilities and complexities making quantification difficult at best. Bearing in mind also that Eminem's work contains a lot of irony- was this adjusted for in any way, or accepted as a limitation to the study? What were the factors like Relative Risks like? How big were the groups- what did the exposed and control groups consist of demographically etc. Weak statistical significance should always be approached with extreme caution (cardinal methodological rule).