Effects of Sexual Activity on Adolescent Social and Psychological Development

Abstract

Recent studies have documented significant increases in the premarital sexual activity of adolescents; whether premarital adolescent sexual activity has any effects on later life events which do not operate through pregnancy related behaviors remains largely untested. This study conducts such an initial investigation by focusing on the short-term consequences of early sexual involvement for changes in the social and psychological characteristics of adolescents. Panel data were collected from Tallahassee Florida public school students in 1980 and 1982; changes over this time period in 15 outcomes are analyzed as consequences of intercourse behavior by race and sex subgroups. To summarize the studys principal findings adolescent premarital coitus: 1) does not precipitate overwhelming changes in an adolescents social psychological framework over a subsequent 2-year interval 2) has more significant effects on the subsequent attitudes and behaviors of whites than of blacks 3) leads to more positive attitudes toward sex for all race-sex subgroups 4) strongly negatively affects the self-reported academic grades of white males 5) negatively affects the importance of going to college among white females and 6) strongly positively affects the selection by white males and white females of friends who are sexually active.