disturbing study - Can You Tell The Difference Between quotes from A Men’s Magazine And A Rapist?

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24. i think this is a provocative but academically worthless "study".

the entire idea that we even can or should be able to distinguish the speaker of selected quotes, or that we should take pause that we can't, is ludicrous, or at least, it's not at all clear what conclusions could possibly be drawn.

clearly, we're intended to infer that lad's mags promulgate thoughts and attitudes shockingly close to those of rapists.

but an equally academically valid conclusion would be that the quotes are entirely irrelevant to the act of rape, and that there's nothing in the quotes to distinguish a rapist from a law-abiding citizen, or at least a typical lad's mag reader.

if the quotes were "i'm hungry" or "two plus two equals four" or "today is wednesday", then there would also be quote hard to tell the rapist's quote from the lad's mag quote, but we wouldn't be shocked because we don't expect that there should be anything there to identify the speaker.

yet, just because the topic seems -- SEEMS -- to be somewhat related to various aspects of rape -- attitude toward women, selection of victim, arrousal, etc. -- we think that we've hit upon something.

but perhaps it's not that at all. perhaps the most relevant quotes should be attitudes toward violence, respect for others, impulse control, or any of a host of other things. point is, it could just be that the selected quotes shed little light on how rapists are different from the rest of us.