Similarity to Sexually Active or Abstinent Others Interacts With Self-Esteem to Predict Sexual Permissiveness.

Similarity to Sexually Active or Abstinent Others Interacts With Self-Esteem to Predict Sexual Permissiveness, Marc B. Setterlund, Alma College; Jessica Camp, University of Michigan 

The purpose of some abstinence education programs is to increase self-esteem of the students. Several psychological theories suggest that self-esteem should not in itself have an effect on sexual behavior and attitudes. One social decision-making process called prototype matching suggests that people decide on behaviors based on their perceptions of the type of person who would engage in those behaviors. It has been found that self-esteem interacts with this process such that people with high self-esteem are more likely to use this process to guide behavior. One implication of this finding is that having high self-esteem may either increase or decrease sexual behavior, depending on whether people perceive themselves as being similar or dissimilar to people who are sexually active. Two studies were conducted to examine the influence of self-esteem, self-concept, and social perception of sexually active and non-active others. Using a seven-point scale, participants rated themselves on trait adjectives. On separate questionnaires, subjects rated the extent to which a trait adjective is descriptive of people who are sexually active, and on a third questionnaire, participants were asked to rate the descriptiveness of the trait adjectives for people who were not sexually active. Participants also completed the Hendrick & Hendrick Sexual Attitudes survey and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory. Similarity was computed by using distance scores computed for self to sexually active others, and self to non-sexually active others. Multiple regression analysis indicated that self-esteem alone was a poor predictor of sexual permissiveness; rather, self-esteem interacts with similarity to perceived others to predict permissiveness.