Attitudes and Behavior Feedback Loops for Young Women's Premarital Sex.

ABSTRACT: Sociologists have long been puzzled by whether attitudes inform behaviors or vice versa. Accurately assessing both possibilities requires panel data collected at relatively short intervals. In this study, I leverage intensive panel data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life Study to assess the case of young women's premarital sexual attitudes and behavior. Through a series of descriptive analyses and cross-lagged panel models, I show that opposition to premarital sex in young adulthood is only sometimes associated with subsequent sexual behavior and that premarital sex is negatively associated with later opposition to premarital sex. Young women are especially likely to reduce their opposition following first sex relative to sex reported at any time. Thus, initial behavioral exper

SUBMITTER: Eilers MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11526198 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature