College Students' Permissive Sexual Attitudes: Links to Religiousness and Spirituality

Abstract

Clear associations exist between religiousness and conservative sexual attitudes, but there is a paucity of research on spirituality's interaction. In this study, the authors examined the link between 297 male and 642 female college students' reports on sexual attitudes coupled with multidimensional measures of intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects of spirituality and religiousness. Results indicated significant links between private religious practices, daily spiritual experiences, and conservative sexual attitudes for all respondents. However, for male but not female participants, self-reported spirituality had significant inverse correlation with permissive sexual attitudes. Further, spiritual disclosure and self-reported extent of religiousness were related to female participants' reports of more conservative sexual attitudes. Finally, hierarchical regression analyses found that spirituality provided unique variance toward conservative sexual attitudes for male but not female participants. Implications of these findings are discussed.