Relationship of sex guilt and moral reasoning to premarital sex in college women and in couples.

Used the Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt Inventory, the Sex Experience Inventory, and Kohlberg's Moral Dilemmas Questionnaire in Exp I to assess 119 unmarried college women with regard to sex behavior, sex guilt, and moral reasoning. Categories of sexual expression were developed which were useful in predicting behavior. Guilt was a better predictor of sex than morality. Maintaining virginity and losing it were multidetermined. Exp II assessed 76 unmarried college couples on the same variables. Sex guilt and sex experience were associated with moral reasoning for men and for couples. Results suggest that the male partner is more influential than the female in setting standards for the couple. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Premarital sexual guilt.

Predictors of premarital sexual guilt at both first and current sexual intercourse were obtained for 355 13–20 yr old sexually active single women attending 10 birth control centers. Guilt was assessed as an episodic emotion rather than as a personality disposition. Results show that the best model for predicting guilt at first intercourse contained the variables of planning for first intercourse and self-esteem, and explained 18% of the variance. 26% of the variance in current sexual guilt was explained by the variables of number of sexual experiences, personal attitude toward premarital intercourse, planning for first intercourse, and self-esteem. (French abstract) (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social attitudes and sexual behaviors of college students.

Investigated the hypothesis that high conservative Ss among 130 undergraduates would report a lower frequency and range of sexual experiences and fewer experiences with R- and X-rated movies. Results support the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex guilt in abortion patients.

Mosher's Forced-Choice Sex Guilt Inventory was administered to 45 clients of a university problem pregnancy counseling service who were planning to have abortions and to 47 sexually active nonpregnant university coeds. Sex guilt was found to be significantly higher for abortion Ss than for nonpregnant Ss. It was also found that for each type of contraceptive, abortion Ss had higher sex guilt than nonabortion Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thematic sexual responses as related to sexual drive and guilt.

The Ss were 66 males. A special set of cards "with a built-in dimension of sexual relevance" was employed. A "direct relationship was found between sexual drive as measured by rate of orgasm, but not by deprivation, and sexual responses. Self-reported guilt and thematic sexual responses were significantly inversely related when deprivation was held constant. A significant interaction was found for deprivation by guilt, but not for rate by guilt, with thematic sexual responses… . Analysis of individual pictures indicated that pictures of relatively low sexual relevance best measured drive, and pictures of relatively high sexual relevance best measured guilt." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HJ69L. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of sexual arousal and guilt upon free associative sexual responses.

Studied sexual associations given to double-entendre words in relation to individual differences in sex-guilt and differing degrees of sexual stimulation. The Mosher Incomplete Sentences Test was used as a measure of sex-guilt. Ss were 84 college males. Results indicate a significant effect between sex-guilt and sexual stimulation. The stimulation procedure produced sexual response increments for both high- and low-guilt groups, but only the increment for low-guilt Ss was significant. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex, sex guilt, and contraceptive use.

The Mosher True–False Guilt Scale, the Mosher Sex Guilt Scale, and questionnaires about sexual activity and contraceptive use were administered to 109 female undergraduates in 1973 and 111 Ss in 1978. Comparisons revealed an increase in sexual activity and a decrease in the use of effective contraception between 1973 and 1978. The data confirmed the utility of the Mosher scales for predicting sexual activity and contraceptive use, while indicating that the level of sex guilt sufficient to inhibit sexual activity in 1973 was no longer sufficient in 1978. Clinical implications of these trends in contraceptive use among unmarried Ss and methodological implications for use of the Mosher Sex-Guilt Scale as a predictor of sexual activity are discussed. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Premarital sexual standards among U.S. college students: comparison with Russian and Japanese students

The study of the sexual permissiveness of young adults has been popular topic in sociology and social psychology, especially since the empirical and theoretical work of Reiss. We extended previous research on premarital sexual standards by examining the degree of sexual permissiveness and the endorsement of the traditional double standard in a large sample of young adults in the United States (N = 1043). In addition, comparative data were collected from young adults in two other countries: Russia (N = 401) and Japan (N = 223). American subjects expressed more acceptance of premarital sex than did the Russian and Japanese subjects. Men were more sexually permissive than women in the U.S. and in Russia but not in Japan. The degree to which the double standard was endorsed also depended on culture and gender. Russian subjects were more likely to endorse the double standard than Japanese and American subjects. However, American men were most likely to endorse the traditional double standard concerning sex early in the dating relationship.     

Sex and ethnic effects on motivation to manage among college business students.

Motivation-to-manage scores on the Miner Sentence Completion Scale were compared for male vs female and Black vs White business students (N?=?216) from 2 universities, 1 predominately White and the other predominately Black. A 2 (S sex)?×?2 (ethnic group) multivariate ANOVA yielded significant differences on motivation to manage for both S sex and ethnic group. A discriminant analysis revealed an underlying 2-dimensional structure, with females separated from males on one dimension by a lower desire to engage in competitive games and Black Ss separated from White Ss on a 2nd dimension by a lower orientation toward imposing wishes and standing out from the group and a greater affinity for the assertive role. Although significant S sex and ethnic group differences were found, further analyses suggested that a rather small amount of variance was explained by the sex and ethnic factors. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex guilt and males' preference for reading erotic magazines.

Measured the time 27 males spent reading erotic or nonerotic magazines while ostensibly waiting to partake in an experiment. Ss then completed a forced choice Sex Guilt scale (D. Mosher), read for another 5 min., and completed a mood adjective checklist, and a double-entendre word association test (G. Galbraith). High erotic readers had significantly lower sex guilt scores than low erotic readers (p     

Sex differences in romantic love attitudes among college students

Collection and collation of statistical information is an ever-increasing requirement in the modern medical illustration department. Business planning and general management decisions are all based on such criteria. As the NHS 'market place' philosophy evolves, traditional manual systems of record-keeping are no longer adequate. This paper describes the 'in-house' development of a customized database using the Apple Macintosh computer, and outlines the reasons for this choice of system.     

Examining memory for heterosexual college students' sexual experiences using an electronic mail diary.

To examine memory for sexual experiences, the authors asked 37 sexually active, nonmonogamous, heterosexual college students to complete an e-mail diary every day for 1 month. The diary contained questions about their sexual behaviors. Six to 12 months later, they returned for a surprise memory test, which contained questions about their sexual experiences from the diary phase. They were asked about their sexual partners, the types of sexual experiences they had, and condom use. Participants underreported the number of partners they had, but they overreported both sexual experiences and condom use. The results have implications for both sexual health educators and for people who engage in high-risk sexual behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relevance of family-of-origin and sexual assault experience to therapeutic outcomes with college students.

This study involving student clients from severely stressed childhood families investigated a desired treatment outcome--improvement in psychosocial functioning--in relation to 3 covariates relevant to therapeutic progress: clients' personal psychological and cognitive resources, their level of affective and interpersonal functioning, and the therapeutic alliance between client and therapist. The authors also determined whether the specific trauma of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) impacted improvement differently than other general, severely stressful childhood family experiences. Results indicated that improvement in psychosocial functioning was related to all 3 client covariates. Furthermore, although the level of stressful childhood family experiences did not directly affect improvement, it may have indirectly affected it through the client covariates. CSA status did not impact improvement during therapy, but the pattern of relationships between the client covariates and improvement distinguished it from more generalized stressful family experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Need for approval, guilt, and sexual stimulation and their relationship to sexual responsivity.

Describes an experiment in which 111 male undergraduates were given the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale and the Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt Scale prior to reading a series of either sexual or neutral passages. Ss rated the extent to which they were sexually aroused, anxious, bored, angry, disgusted, and entertained, and then responded to a sexual double-entendre word association test. Responses indicate that Ss were significantly more sexually aroused after reading the sexual as opposed to the neutral passages. Need approval and guilt scores were not significantly related to stated degree of arousal or any of the other dimensions. Low need-approval Ss showed greater sexual responsivity to the entendres than highs, especially subsequent to reading the sexual passages. For the guilt variable, Ss with low sex guilt demonstrated greater sexual responsivity on the entendres regardless of whether they read neutral or sexual passages. Results suggest that these personality variables affect responding rather than affect arousal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociative experiences, psychopathology and adjustment, and child and adolescent maltreatment in female college students.

33 female college students who scored in the upper 15% on the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) were compared with 33 female students who scored below the mean on the DES on measures of psychopathology (SCL-90), college adjustment (Student Adpatation to College Questionnaire), and child and adolescent maltreatment. Compared with controls, high-DES Ss reported more psychopathology, poorer college adjustment, and a greater extent of psychological, physical, and sexual maltreatment. On the basis of the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule, 2 high-DES Ss but none of the control Ss met criteria for a dissociative disorder (i.e., multiple personality and psychogenic amnesia). Despite the sensitivity of the DES, 8 Ss who scored in the upper 2% of the population on the DES failed to meet criteria for a dissociative disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Forced sexual intercourse and associated health-risk behaviors among female college students in the United States.

This study analyzed data from the 1995 National College Health Risk Behavior Survey (NCHRBS) to assess the prevalence of lifetime rape among female college students and to examine the association between rape and health-risk behaviors. The NCHRBS used a mail questionnaire to assess health-risk behaviors among a nationally representative sample of undergraduate students. Twenty percent of female students reported ever having been forced to have sexual intercourse, most often during adolescence. When analyses controlled for demographic characteristics, female students who had ever been raped were significantly more likely than those who had not to report a wide range of health-risk behaviors. These results highlight a need to improve rape prevention and treatment programs for female adolescents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of sex guilt and sexual stimulation on the recall of word associations.

Elicited free associations to a mixed list of double-entendre sexual and asexual words from 84 male undergraduates under conditions of sexual and no sexual stimulation (control). Ability to recall the associations was then studied in relation to individual differences in sex guilt. Recall was tested immediately after associations were elicited. Results indicate a significant interaction between stimulation and guilt. High-sex-guilt Ss showed better recall for associations elicited under the control condition. Conversely, low-sex-guilt Ss showed better recall under the sexual stimulation condition. Results also suggest that the sexuality-asexuality of stimulus words might be a significant factor in the recall errors of high- and low-sex-guilt Ss. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication with college students.

Discusses the problems of communication with college students which are part of the alienation pattern that developed during the 1960s. Many Ss now actively distrust psychological tests and experiments; and neither these Ss nor the compliant Ss who want to give the investigator whatever he wants can be a source of objective data. To remedy this alienation requires better methods of communication. Conspicuous among the forms of "metacommunication" which undermine the communicative process are the deception of Ss and artificially controlled experiments on human affective states (e.g., frustration). Methods for restoring communication with students should include the reinstatement of interviews in test designs, awareness of the changing values of Ss and appropriate modification of assessment procedures, and the development of better theories of communication, since most communication models of the past have been too objective, ignoring intrapersonal processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)