Attitudes Toward Sex Work Measure

Abstract

The Attitudes Toward Sex Work Measure (ATSW-M), developed by Puffer, Hodson, and Prusaczyk (2024), is a specialized 24-item instrument designed to quantify individuals’ perceptions regarding cisgender women’s participation across various forms of sex work. This measure uniquely incorporates modern manifestations, such as webcamming and sugar relationships, alongside traditional domains like prostitution and pornography. The core structure assesses two primary psychological factors—agency and harm—for each domain, providing a nuanced view of whether participation is perceived as empowering or exploitative.

The scale was validated using a sample of U.S. residents recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Prior to assessment, participants were provided with detailed descriptions of each sex work domain to ensure informed responses. The study reported strong reliability metrics and utilized exploratory factor analysis to confirm the intended two-factor structure across the four domains.

Keywords

Attitudes, Sex Work, Agency, Harm, Webcamming, Sugar Relationships, Prostitution, Pornography, Cisgender Women, Psychological Measurement.

Authors

Puffer, Hanna, Hodson, Gordon, Prusaczyk, Elvira.

Purpose

The primary objective of the Attitudes Toward Sex Work Measure (ATSW-M) is to systematically evaluate individual attitudes concerning cisgender women engaging in diverse forms of sex work. This assessment moves beyond simple approval or disapproval, specifically focusing on the perceived balance between empowerment (agency) and exploitation or danger (harm).

The instrument provides researchers with a comprehensive tool to explore nuanced societal perceptions, covering contemporary domains like webcamming and sugar relationships. By examining these activities, the scale aims to determine the extent to which respondents view these activities as exploitative, harmful, or empowering for women, offering a comprehensive understanding of how specific forms of sex work are viewed through the lens of potential benefit versus inherent risk to the participants.

Construct

The ATSW-M is designed to capture two distinct, yet related, psychological constructs pertaining to the perception of sex work engagement across four different domains (webcamming, sugar relationships, prostitution, and pornography). The 24 items are structured to load onto these two orthogonal factors:

• Agency: This factor measures the extent to which observers view participation in sex work as an empowering choice, reflecting confidence, independence, control, and personal autonomy for the women involved.
• Harm: This factor measures the degree to which participation in sex work is perceived as exploitative, dangerous, or inherently harmful to the women, often aligning with concerns about coercion, abuse, or societal vulnerability.

Validity

Specific indicators of criterion, convergent, or discriminant validity were not explicitly detailed in the original source documentation for the ATSW-M. Therefore, comprehensive external validity data is currently unavailable.

The foundational validity claim rests on the successful confirmation of the intended bifactorial structure (Agency and Harm) achieved through exploratory factor analysis, suggesting strong evidence for the internal structure and construct validity of the measured dimensions.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the ATSW-M was rigorously assessed using Cronbach’s alpha ($alpha$) for both the Agency and Harm factors across all four domains. The results demonstrate excellent to acceptable reliability across the subscales, indicating high internal coherence among the items designed to measure each specific construct.

• Agency Factor Internal Consistency:
  • Webcamming ($alpha$ = 0.90)
  • Pornography ($alpha$ = 0.89)
  • Prostitution ($alpha$ = 0.89)
  • Sugar relationships ($alpha$ = 0.78)
• Harm Factor Internal Consistency:
  • Webcamming ($alpha$ = 0.86)
  • Pornography ($alpha$ = 0.89)
  • Prostitution ($alpha$ = 0.87)
  • Sugar relationships ($alpha$ = 0.85)

Factor Analysis

The development of the measure utilized exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the underlying structure of the 24 items. The EFA results strongly supported the theoretical framework, confirming the presence of two distinct and meaningful factors—Agency and Harm—within each of the four domains of sex work assessed (webcamming, sugar relationships, prostitution, and pornography).

This confirmation provides crucial evidence for the scale’s ability to separately measure perceptions of empowerment versus exploitation, validating the instrument’s intended multidimensional structure and supporting its use for nuanced psychological and sociological research.

Instrument

Test Type: Inventory/Questionnaire

Format: Electronic

Language Available: English (Based on the U.S. resident sample used for validation)

Population Group: General population

Age Group: Adults (Assumed based on recruitment via Amazon Mechanical Turk)

Population Details: Sample consisted of U.S. residents recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk).

Test Methodology: The measure was tested for internal consistency and reliability using exploratory factor analysis. The assessment requires participants to read descriptions of the four domains before responding to items on a Likert scale.

Keywords

Reliability, Internal Consistency, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Psychological Scale, Likert Scale, MTurk, Social Attitudes.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Hanna Puffer: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0789-2729

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in the source document.

Correspondence Address: Not specified in the source document.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 2024

Permissions and Fees: Information regarding formal licensing or associated fees for the use of the ATSW-M is not provided in the source material. Researchers interested in utilizing the scale should contact the primary author, Hanna Puffer, for permission requests.

Reference’s

Puffer, H., Hodson, G., & Prusaczyk, E. (2024). Attitudes toward cisgender women’s participation in sex work: Opportunity for agency or harmful exchange? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 53(3), 1169–1185.

Items of the Attitudes Toward Sex Work Measure

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

• Number of Items: 24 (6 items for each of the 4 domains: webcamming, sugar relationships, prostitution, and pornography)
• Rating Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = not at all, 7 = extremely)
• Format: Electronic

The items assess participants’ opinions on women’s participation in the four domains of sex work, focusing on the degree to which participation is seen as exploiting, empowering, benefiting, or putting women in danger. Items are divided equally between the Agency and Harm factors for each domain.