The social cognitive theory, which stems from the observational learning theory, is concerned with explaining behavior. More specifically, in terms of the sexual media, this theory outlines the steps by which an individual models their own behavior after the sexual media they are exposed to. For example, the number of sexual partners and individual chooses to have, the age at which they decide to have sex, or whether or not one chooses to practice safe sex are all behaviors that could possibly be learned or altered through sexual media exposure.

There are four steps in the observational learning-attention, retention, production, and motivation. If one is able to carry out all four steps this

The effects on one's behavior due to exposure from sexual media are not automatic. Each step is facilitated by various characteristics of the media content. In order for a teenage viewer to pay attention, the sexual media must be relevant to a young adults life, dealing with issues they are going through. The content must also be "positive emotionally, prevalent, not too complex, accessible and useful." Furthermore, the teenage viewer must, for example, be able to look at an episode of Sex in the City and be able to "perceive the behavior, understand it, relate it to a previous experience, be mildly aroused by it, and finally like it." Therefore, a young teenage boy watching Sex in the City may not give as much attention as a thirty-something woman living in New York because the show would not be as relevant for him.

While cultivation theory is concerned with what a viewer thinks, priming theory "holds that when people witness, read, or hear an event via the mass media, ideas having similar meaning are activated in them for a short time...and that these thoughts in turn can activate other semantically related ideas and action tendencies." Priming theory explains how the sexual media activates similar thoughts and ideas in our mind. The priming process can occur automatically and last for a short period of time. Watching actions in sexual media can increase the probability that a viewer will perform the action. Therefore repeated exposure to sexual media activates ideas and inclinations that have been cultivated through

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