Ethnic differences and influence of perceived future certainty on adolescent and young adult sexual knowledge and attitudes

Abstract

This study examined the effects of future certainty (the perceptions an individual has about how positive and certain their future is) on adolescents' and young adults' sexual knowledge and sexual attitudes. This longitudinal study measured sexual knowledge and attitudes one year after an initial measure of future certainty. Ethnic differences among these relationships were also examined for Hispanic, African American and white adolescents in an attempt to explain some of the variability in sexual risk for these ethnic groups. A total of 2900 male and 3081 female youth were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), and were measured on four aspects of future certainty: life certainty (e.g., life expectancy), health certainty (i.e., sexually transmitted infection risk), marriage certainty, and college certainty. Results using analysis of variance showed that white youth were less at-risk of perceiving negative and uncertain futures than their peers. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses also showed that the future certainty variables predicted sexual knowledge and permissive sexual attitudes one year later, after controlling for individual and family characteristics. However, the direction of the relationship was dependent on the type of future certainty, and not all relationships held for all three ethnic groups. The study provides important information for intervention research targeting youth who are at-risk for engaging in high risk sexual behaviours.