1. Learning About Sex: How does it Affect your Sexual Future
Learning About Sex: How does it Affect your Sexual Future? Gabrielle Douglas Hinchen (Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Tracy Masterson)
Introduction
Measures
Purpose:
The purpose of the study was to determine if sex education and religiosity have a significant impact on how a person views sex.
Background:
According to Kohler, Manhart & Lafferty (2008), “68% of year olds have had formal contraceptive education, with 16% reporting instruction in pregnancy only education… and another 16% received no education at all.”
Types of Education:
Abstinence Only education is taught in moral terms such as “commitment” and “being responsible” in the absence of teaching safe sex practices (Santelli, Ott, Lyon, Rogers, Summers & Schliefer, 2006). Comprehensive sex education is defined as education that includes abstinence but also talks about contraception and STI prevention (Kohler, et al., 2006).
Hypothesis:
A: individuals receiving Abstinence Only education will rate a promiscuous person more negatively when compared to one who received Comprehensive sex education
B: people who are highly religious will have more negative sexual attitudes if they were also exposed to Abstinence only education
Condition vs. Religiosity
Formulated Measure:
Likert scale on a range of 1-5 was used to determine how accepting of the possible relationship the participants were
(1 = strongly agree with relationship and 5 = strongly disagree with relationship)
Professional Measures:
Centrality of Religion Scale (Huber, & Huber, 2012).
Sexual Attitudes Scale (Hudson, & Murphy, 1998)
(1 = strong positive attitude towards sex and 5 = strong negative attitude)
Descriptive Statistics
Sex Education vs. Gender:
Condition vs. Religiosity:
Descriptive: 61.3% of participants reportedly received Comprehensive sex education and 38.7% received Abstinence Only sex education.
Sex Education vs. Condition: There was a significant interaction between gender and type of sex education (p =.014) such that male participants had significantly more negative views of sexuality when exposed to Comprehensive education and had more positive views when exposed to Abstinence Only education; the opposite relationship was observed in the female sample.
Condition vs. Religiosity:
Significant main effect for condition p = .001 such that participants exposed to the promiscuous condition viewed the situation more unfavorable when compared to those exposed to the sexually conservative condition.
Significant main effect between those who identified as non- religious or moderately religious p =.003 and highly religious p =.01.
Interaction between those who were exposed to the promiscuous condition and those who identified as ether not religious or highly religious.
Significant interaction between those exposed to the virgin condition and those who identified as ether not religious or moderately religious p<.001.
There was a significant interaction
F(1,115) =6.217, p=.014, ηp2=.051
There was no main effect for Sex education
F(1,115) =.007, p =.933, ηp2<.001
There was no main effect for Gender
F(1, 115) =.227, p=.634, ηp2=.002
There was a marginally significant interaction
F(1,113) =1.742, p=.073 ηp2=.116
There was a main effect for Condition
F(1,113) =30.465, p<.001, ηp2 =.212
There was a main effect for Religiosity
F(1, 113) =7.38, p=.001, ηp2 =.045
Participants: N= 119 undergraduate students
Design:
2 (sex education type: Comprehensive or Abstinence Only) x 3 (Religiosity: High Religiosity or Moderate Religiosity or Not Religious ) between subjects design
2 (sex education: Comprehensive or Abstinence Only) x 2 ( Condition: Promiscuous or Virgin)
Participant's were randomly assigned to read one of two vignettes related to a friend who is asking them about whether they should pursue a relationship with a sexually promiscuous (vignette A) or an abstinent partner (vignette B).
Method
Discussion and Conclusions
Sex Education vs Gender:
As a function of gender, the type of sexual socialization received impacts sexual attitudes. Specifically, men who received comprehensive sex education are more likely to view sex in a more instrumental way.
Condition vs. Religiosity:
This data is very intriguing because it goes against the stereotype that religious people are anti sex. Therefore it can be concluded that because, sex education informs people about how dangerous sex can be those who are promiscuous may cause the participants anxiety due to a sense of them being risky or dangerous, although those who are virgins don’t have enough sexual experience to be worth their time. However, those who are religious are influenced by the sexual morays present in Religion. Including ideals like sex being a gift from god. Meaning that religious people may be more inclined to forgive those who are promiscuous while embracing those who are virgins.
Vignette A (Promiscuous)
A good friend of yours comes to you for some advice regarding someone they met recently at a bar, they tell you that this person is quite sexually active and mentioned having had sex with multiple partners at the same time. Your friend and this person exchanged numbers, and your friend asks you if you think they should continue to see this person.
Vignette B (Virgin)
A good friend of yours comes to you for some advice regarding someone they met recently at a bar, they tell you that this person is a virgin and mentioned never having sex before. Your friend and this person exchanged numbers, and your friend asks you if you think they should continue to see this person.
Sex Education vs. Gender