Social Network Influences on Adolescent Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors

Abstract

Within a socialization paradigm, a model was developed and tested to examine social network influences on adolescent sexual behavior and contraceptive use. It was hypothesized that the social network influences of parents and peers would affect the contraceptive knowledge and premarital sexual attitudes of adolescents. In turn, knowledge and attitudes were expected to influence sexual behavior and contraceptive use. The sample comprised 161 male and 200 female high school students. Results from the LISREL analyses indicated that the model was a good fit to the data and that the model differed significantly between males and females and between virgins and nonvirgins. Approximately 50% of the variance was explainedfor virgin and nonvirgin females, and for virgin males. Parents were more influential for males, whereas friends were more important for females. The transition to nonvirginity seems to produce a greater change in the social environment offemales than of males.