Sociosexuality and Bright and Dark Personality: The Prediction of Behavior, Attitude, and Desire to Engage in Casual Sex.

Elena Fernández Del Río,Pedro J Ramos-Villagrasa,Juan Ramón Barrada,Ángel Castro

doi:10.3390/ijerph16152731

Elena Fernández Del Río, Pedro J Ramos-Villagrasa + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16152731

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Abstract

Research about sociosexuality, understood as differences in people’s willingness to have sex without commitment in terms of its predictors, such as demographics, relationship status, or individual traits, such as personality, is still scarce. Although sociosexuality was initially considered unidimensional, a tridimensional structure—with behavior, attitudes, and desire as its components—is gaining momentum in the literature nowadays. The present study proposes to develop different predictive models for each dimension, examining the role of personality (i.e., the “Big Five” and the “Dark Tetrad”) and sociodemographic variables. Participants were 991 university students from a Spanish university (75.5% women, 72.0% heterosexual, Mage = 20.66). Our results provide evidence that predictors of sociosexuality vary depending on the dimension under analysis. Being female, older, not having a heterosexual orientation, and not being involved in a current relationship predicted higher scores in sociosexual behavior and attitudes. Regarding personality, psychopathy and extraversion were the only traits involved in all three components of sociosexuality. Neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness also play a role in the prediction of some of the sociosexuality dimensions. These results help to disentangle the relationship between personality and sociosexuality and to design more effective programs and policies to promote sexual health.

Highlights

It is nowadays common for university students to be involved in casual sex, which encompasses sexual behavior occurring outside a committed, romantic relationship [1,2,3]
Older participants tended to have higher levels of sociosexual behavior (r = 0.34, p < 0.001), and men (r = 0.32, p < 0.001) and those not involved in a romantic relationship (r = −0.39, p < 0.001) tended to present higher level of sociosexual desire
With respect to dark personality, psychopathy was related to all three dimensions of sociosexuality (rs in the range of (0.19, 0.34), ps < 0.001), whereas all four aspects of the Dart Tetrad were associated with sociosexual desire (rs in the range (0.18, 0.34), ps < 0.001)

Summary

Introduction

It is nowadays common for university students to be involved in casual sex, which encompasses sexual behavior occurring outside a committed, romantic relationship [1,2,3]. Casual sex has been related to risky sexual behavior (i.e., less condom use), especially in party settings, and this could increase the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies [4,5]. Having more detailed information about the predictors of casual sex could have important implications in the public health policies of different institutions, for instance in the design of sexual health programs [6]. The construct that comprises individual differences in willingness to engage casual sex is sociosexuality [7]. According to the classic approach of the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI; [8]), most of the studies have considered sociosexuality as being unidimensional, a continuum with two poles: Restricted sociosexuality

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