School of Psychology

Relationships and Sexual Behaviour Survey.

A Study on relationships and sexual behaviour.

Supervisors:             Professor Bonnie Barber and Dr Suzanne Dziurawiec

In early 2007, Murdoch University students aged 18-25years had the opportunity to participate in anonymous online survey about relationships and sexual behaviour. Thank you to all of those who participated. Your participation is greatly appreciated. Below are some brief details and results from the survey. If you have any questions about these results, or would like further information, please do no hesitate to email me, Gaynor Edwards: G.Edwards@murdoch.edu.au

Participants

• 1144 students from Murdoch University participated in an anonymous online survey.
• Students were aged 18-25 years and were from a broad range of disciplines, with larger numbers from biological sciences, business, veterinary science, media, psychology and law.

Measures:

Some of the measures completed by participants included:

• Rejection sensitivity: Those who are rejection sensitive hold relationship views whereby individuals anxiously expect and react intensely to rejection (Downey & Feldman, 1996).
• Sexual Behaviour: Participants were asked to rate on a scale of 1-5 (1 = never - 5 = always):
• How often they wanted to use condoms?
• How often they thought their partner wanted to use condoms?
• How often they had sex because they were pressured into it?
• Relative Power: Participants reported how emotionally invested they were in their romantic or casual relationship, and how emotionally invested they thought their partners were. The difference between the scores was used as a measure of relative power. Higher scores indicated higher levels of power. These items were adapted from Tschann, Adler, Millstein, Gurvey, and Ellen (2002).

Results

Three papers have been formed from the survey responses. The results from each paper are summarised below:

Study 1:
Title: Women may underestimate their partners’ desires to use condoms: Possible implications for behaviour.

• This paper examined participants’ condom use desires, measured by the frequency at which they wanted to use a condom.
• Results showed that individuals wanted to use condoms more often than they perceived their partners to want to use condoms in both romantic and casual relationships.
• Furthermore, the discrepancy between their own, and their perceived partner’s condom use desires, differed by gender. Women thought that their male partners wanted to use condoms less often than the male participants reported themselves.
• Men and women did not significantly differ in the frequency at which they wanted to use condoms.
• After controlling for other birth control use, wanting to use condoms, and perceiving that one’s partner wanted to use condoms predicted more condom use.
• The results suggest that gendered expectations may act as a barrier to condom negotiation. Intervention could be directed at correcting the misperception that men want to use condoms less than women.

Study 2:
Title: Condom use as sexual compliance: Rejection sensitivity predicts condom use when individual and perceived partner condom use desires are incongruent.

• This study examined the link between rejection sensitivity and condom use.
• After controlling for gender and other birth control use, rejection sensitivity predicted condom use at times when a participant’s condom use desires were at odds with those they thought their partner held. Specifically, more rejection sensitive individuals used condoms less when they wanted to use condoms, but thought that their partner didn’t. This pattern was found in both romantic and casual relationship contexts.
• The results lend support to the model of rejection sensitivity (Downey & Feldman 1996) that individuals will comply with ones partner’s desires if they are more rejection-sensitive.
• The results also highlight the need to take the situational context into consideration when examining links between personality dispositions and behavior.

Study 3:
Title: Interactions between power and gender: Power is associated with pressured sex and condom use differentially for men and women.

• Study three examined how power and gender related to condom use and pressured sex in romantic and casual relationships.
• Interactions with gender were tested to investigate whether the effects of relative power on condom use and pressured sex differed for men and women.
• In casual relationships, having greater power was associated with more condom use for women, but not for men.
• In both romantic and casual relationships, greater power was associated with having pressured sex among men, but not women. This was a surprising finding, with men who reported having greater power, having sex because their female partners pressured them more frequently, than men reporting less power.

Reference:
Downey, G., & Feldman, S. I. (1996). Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1327-1343.

Tschann, J. M., Adler, N. E., Millstein, S. G., Gurvey, J. E., & Ellen, J. M. (2002). Relative power between sexual partners and condom use among adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 31(1), 17-25.