Original article
Adolescent sexual behavior and attitudes: A costs and benefits approach

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2004.08.026Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

The majority of past research conceptualized adolescent sexual attitudes as a single factor that included both Costs and Benefits of sexual behavior. The current study examined the independent influences of attitudes concerning the costs, such as embarrassment and pregnancy, and benefits, such as physical pleasure, of sexual intercourse on reports of actual engagement in sexual intercourse controlling for age, gender, religion, and cognitive ability.

Methods

This study utilized data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Participants were 14,871 adolescents aged 15 and older who completed the Wave I In-Home Interview. Hierarchical regression was used to examine the relation between Costs and Benefits and the variables of age, gender, religion, and cognitive ability. Logistic regression was used to predict engagement in sexual intercourse at Wave I and Wave II from measures of costs, benefits, age, gender, religion, and cognitive ability.

Results

The measure of Costs and Benefits demonstrated good psychometric properties. Both Costs and Benefits were significantly associated with concurrent and future sexual activity after controlling for demographic variables (age, religion, gender, cognitive ability). In addition, both Costs and Benefits also predicted sexual initiation between Waves I and II.

Conclusions

The current study demonstrated the importance of both Costs and Benefits in predicting later sexual activity. Although attitudes concerning costs were slightly more influential in predicting sexual activity, our results suggest that interventions designed to delay sexual activity should include components of both Costs and Benefits.

Section snippets

Purpose of the current study

The goal of the current project was to investigate the influence of perceived Costs and Benefits of sexual intercourse on concurrent and future sexual activity among adolescents. This issue has important implications for prevention. If both of these attitude components, specifically Costs and Benefits, are associated with sexual activity then interventions designed to delay sexual activity would need to address both of these dimensions in order to be successful. Alternatively, if either costs

Participants

This study utilized information gathered during Waves I and Waves II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) [26]. This sample was designed to be representative of the United States in terms of geographic region, ethnicity, urbanization, and school demographics. A total of 80 high schools were selected, with the requirements of enrollment of > 30 students and having an 11th grade class. Data was also collected from the associated “feeder” schools, such as junior

Descriptives

Mean scores on the attitude scales were 2.76 for benefits (SD = .74) and 3.38 for costs (SD = .71). Table 2 presents the correlations between benefits, costs, age, gender, religion, and AHPVT. Although most correlations were small, the measure of costs was significantly associated with gender, age, religion, and AHPVT scores and benefits was significantly correlated with gender, age, and religion. A follow-up t-test (t [14,797] = 58.5, p < .001) showed that males (M = 3.08, SD = .68) were more

Discussion

The primary purpose of the current study was to determine the extent to which 2 aspects of attitudes, namely the dimensions of costs and benefits, predicted concurrent and future sexual activity. The results were not consistent with our expectations that the effects of benefits would be stronger than those of costs. The effects of costs were found to be equivalent, if not stronger, than that of benefits. As the past research which suggested this hypothesis was based on college students and

Acknowledgments

Support for this research was provided by grant 1R01HD042406-1 from the National Institute of Child and Human Development to David B. Henry (PI). This article was based on data provided by the Add Health program project. Designed by J. Richard Udry (PI) and Peter Bearman, Add Health was funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with cooperative funding

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