Sexual Behavior Of Adolescents Research Articles

Psychological aspects of sexually transmitted infection acquisition in adolescent girls: a developmental perspective.

Each year, 3 million US teenagers are infected with a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Given the variability present in female adolescents in terms of maturation (biological, cognitive, and psychosexual), sexual knowledge and experiences, interpersonal skills, and sociocultural contexts, programs targeted at this group must use a developmental perspective. This paper reviews the bidirectional impact of the relationships between these developmental factors. Sexual behavior in adolescence is determined by the individual's assessment of risk and regulated by consequences that are subjectively interpreted. Adolescent girls vary significantly in the extent to which they perceive they have control over STI preventive behaviors. A belief in control over one's fate is both developmental in nature and culturally specific. Adolescent girls who contract an STI are likely to react with emotion-focused coping strategies, including wishful thinking. Interventions aimed at this group must be multidisciplinary and address biomedical, behavioral/psychological, and cultural interventions.

Athletic Participation and Sexual Behavior in Adolescents: The Different Worlds of Boys and Girls

Using multivariate analysis of covariance to test hypotheses about the effects of sports and sexual behavior on a sample of 611 Western New York adolescents, this study concludes that athletic participation and gender interact to influence adolescent sexual outcomes. Female athletes report significantly lower rates of sexual activity than female nonathletes; male athletes report slightly (though not significantly) higher rates than male nonathletes. The gender-specific effect of sports on sexual behavior remains, net of the impacts of race, age, socioeconomic status, quality of family relations, and participation in other extracurricular activities. This paper introduces cultural resource theory to explain how athletic participation influences both traditional cultural scripts and exchange resources, which, in turn, condition the sexual bargaining process and its outcomes for adolescents.

The Development of Sexual Risk Taking in Adolescence

This chapter reviews literature from 1985 to the present that is focused on the development of sexual behaviors in adolescents, decision making about sexual behavior, and sexual risk-taking behaviors. Results show that sexual behavior is part of most people's lives from childhood through adulthood, and that the majority of adolescents begin to engage in sexual behaviors in their teenage years. Synthesis of this large body of research reveals a lack of theoretical frameworks to guide research in sexual risk taking, resulting in an incomplete understanding of the predictors of sexual risk-taking behavior in adolescents. New and broader approaches in the study of sexual risk taking are needed that include consideration of the social and developmental context from which adolescents make decisions about sexual behavior.

Sexual behaviour of adolescents before and after the advent of AIDS.

OBJECTIVES: To asses changes in sexual behaviour and use of contraceptive methods in Danish adolescents from the period before the advent of AIDS up to the present. DESIGN: Comparative study...

THE PEDIATRICIAN AND THE SEXUALLY ACTIVE ADOLESCENT: Sexual Activity and Contraception

Sexuality and its resultant consequences continue to be major issues for adolescents and for those who provide their health care. This article discusses current sexual behavior in adolescents and describes the various forms of hormonal contraception that sexually active adolescents should use.

Differences in subadult behaviors of chimpanzees living in peer groups and in a family group

In several primate species, peer-group rearing conditions affect the development of social behavior. We compared the social behavior of adolescent chimpanzees reared in peer groups and in a family group to see whether chimpanzees raised under different regimes show differences in sexual behavior, teasing behavior, and grooming behavior and in their ability to cope with support strategies. Surprisingly, the lack of opportunity to practice or to watch in peer groups had no measurable effect on the development of normal sexual behavior in adolescence and adulthood. Peer-group individuals groomed each other as much as peers did in the zoo. Sex differentiation in reaction to teasing and in conflict initiatives may indicate only an earlier sex differentiation in the zoo than in the peer group. This result may be attributed to the difference in demographic composition of the groups instead of some inherent difference in skill. Peer-group chimpanzees simply cannot find adult partners with which they may preferably test their position. However, there was a lack of sex differentiation in the reaction to teasing and in the number of conflicts started; both are indications of lesser sex-role development in the peer-group adolescents. Furthermore, the frequency of giving support to peers in conflicts differed, which suggests a greater ability in zoo adolescents to cope with support strategies. Accordingly, providing more natural conditions than is usual in laboratories may still add considerably to chimpanzee well-being.

Sexual behavior among adolescents reporting chronic conditions: A French national survey

To compare sexual behavior in adolescents with a physical handicap or a chronic illness (HCI, n = 604) to a healthy group (HG, n = 7,332). Data drawn from a French national health survey carried out among 7,936 adolescents (mean age = 16.2 years) were used. A self-report questionnaire concerning health behavior, sexual behavior, and chronic illness was used in 136 public secondary schools. HCI and HG groups were compared on reported sexual behavior as well as on information (on sexuality, AIDS, and pregnancy) given by the parents. Logistic regression was performed for boys and girls to explore the relationship of health status (HCI or HG) to sexual intercourse, adjusted for sociodemographic variables. Fifty-two percent of HCI boys and 38% of HCI girls reported sexual intercourse (vs. 42% of HG boys and 28% of HG girls). The HCI girls reported more often than HG girls changing partners, pregnancy, and use of oral contraceptives. The HCI boys reported more often than HG boys receiving information on sexuality from their parents. French HCI adolescents were found to be at high risk for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STD).

Maintaining safer sex behaviours in HIV-infected adolescents with haemophilia. The Hemophilia Behavioral Evaluative Intervention Project Committee.

Adolescents with haemophilia comprise 44% of the reported AIDS cases in teenagers. Unprotected sexual intercourse among this group increases the risk of HIV transmission. Understanding the influences which others may have on the sexual behaviour of adolescents with HIV and haemophilia may lead to the development of effective risk reduction strategies. An evaluative instrument, administered to 307 HIV-infected adolescents with haemophilia, assessed their behavioural stage of change (Prochaska & DiClemente), attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about safer sex practices. The influence of parents, peers and sexual partners on sexual behaviour was compared between (1) those who were sexually experienced and (2) and those who were sexually inexperienced. Barriers and facilitators to practising safer sex were identified. Although parents influenced the sexual behaviour of both groups, this influence was significantly greater in the sexually inactive group. Fewer than 20% reported that their peers impacted their decisions about sexual behaviour. Eighty-six per cent of the sexually active indicated that partners significantly impacted their sexual decisions, while 60% of the sexually inactive indicated that future partners would affect their decisions about sex. Most participants agreed that disclosure of HIV status before intercourse was desirable, but only 31% of the sexually active said they told every partner. Fear of rejection or a negative reaction from the partner, and lack of communication skills were the greatest barriers to disclosure of HIV status and practising safer sex. This study indicates that behavioural interventions for both groups should focus on developing communication skills and self-efficacy. Interventions should include the key influences for each group--parents for the sexually inactive and partners for the sexually active.

A Contextual Approach to Research on AIDS Prevention

The acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease that is transmitted almost entirely through behavioral factors. In the absence of a cure or vaccine, the modification of AIDS-risk behavior presents a unique challenge to behavioral scientists and should be taken as a clear imperative by behavior analysts. This paper discusses the currently dominant social-cognitive theories (the health belief model, the theory of reasoned action, and self-efficacy theory) that have been widely used to predict and understand AIDS-risk behavior. Although these theories have generated a voluminous literature on the cognitive, attitudinal, and demographic correlates of AIDS-risk behavior, they have not resulted in specific intervention strategies to influence risky behavior, most likely because they fail to specify manipulable variables. As an alternative to social-cognitive theories, this paper evaluates the usefulness of a behavior-analytic approach to stem the spread of HIV infection. It examines some of the philosophical differences underlying cognitive and behavioral approaches that are embedded in mechanistic versus functional contextualistic principles. It explores the theoretical and practical implications of adopting either predicting and explaining behavior or predicting and influencing behavior as the goals of science. To illustrate the value of adopting the goal of prediction and influence, behavior-analytic research on the social context of risky sexual behavior in adolescents is described. The paper argues that in order to alter the future course of the AIDS epidemic, the behavioral sciences must move beyond describing cognitive and attitudinal correlates of risky behavior and focus on the social context of the behavior of individuals. In addition, population-wide changes in AIDS-risk behavior can be accomplished only if research focuses on how to influence larger social systems, including the media, school systems, and community organizations.

AIDS anxieties of adolescents: Determinants of “state” and “trait” anxiety dimensions in a linear structural model

This study presents the effects of general psychologic characteristics on acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) anxieties and sexual behaviour of adolescents. To this end, data were collected in a complex interview and subsequently subjected to a linear structural model analysis. The questioned adolescents were divided into one representative group ( n = 256) and a second group who had participated in a voluntary human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody test ( n = 45). AIDS anxieties have to be divided into two independent dimensions: first, a relatively stable feeling of AIDS anxiety (trait anxiety) and second, a manifest personal anxiety toward AIDS experienced in a concrete situation (state anxiety). A principal component analysis of the primary data brought forth four variables described as depression/ general anxiety, extent of phobic anxieties, compulsion, and tendency to self consciousness. The present study reveals that the AIDS trait anxiety is more pronounced among those subjects who are not well informed about AIDS, who tend to phobic anxieties, and who observe themselves in a particularly intensive manner. The AIDS state anxiety however, is stronger among subjects who are well informed about AIDS, have sexual experience, and observe themselves intensively. Among the participants who took part in the HIV test, there were more individuals with a higher manifest AIDS anxiety and stronger tendency to depression. The percentage of adolescents who were indeed exposed to a possible risk of getting infected was relatively low. Generally speaking, those young people who are depressed, anxious, and sexually active agreed more easily to take the test than young people with a pronounced phobia toward the risk of infection and less sexual experience. As a conclusion, we can state that those adolescents with less sexual experience tend to externalize their general sexual anxieties in the form of concrete AIDS anxieties.

The Validation of a Construct of High-Risk Sexual Behavior in Heterosexual Adolescents

The potential spread of HIV infection into the adolescent population underscores the need for valid measures of high-risk sexual behavior in adolescents. This article reports on the development and construct validation of two measures of high-risk sexual behavior for heterosexual adolescents. Based on evidence that diverse problem behaviors are interrelated in adolescents, it was hypothesized that specific risky sexual behaviors, such as nonuse of condoms and multiple partners, would be interrelated, and that the cluster of high-risk sexual behaviors would be correlated with measures of other adolescent problem behaviors. The interrelationships among specific sexual behaviors were consistent across three independent samples, and the composite sexual behavior measures were correlated with measures of other problem behaviors. The results provide support for the validity of a construct of high-risk sexual behavior and point to the need for interventions that target diverse risky sexual behaviors.

Self-reported health concerns and sexual behaviors in adolescents with cervical dysplasia: A pilot study

A group of 46 women attending an adolescent dysplasia clinic were surveyed regarding the reported impact of cervical dysplasia on sexual beliefs and behaviors. The adolescents reported being concerned about their future health and having changed their sexual practices. There were no clear relationships between demographic variables or sexual attitudes and changes. The adolescents' self-reports of their behavior were not consistent; those adolescents who reported safer sex practices did not have lower rates of sexually transmitted diseases postbiopsy. The results of this study indicate the important but complex impact of sexually transmitted disease on adolescents and suggests that this impact on adolescents may be different from that on adults.

The sexual behavior of adolescents and risk of AIDS

The sexual behavior of adolescents and risk of AIDS

The Sexual Behavior of Adolescents and Risk of AIDS

To the Editor. — Implicit to the considerable national effort promoting acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) education among sexually active adolescents and young adults is that, with increased knowledge, individuals will opt for less risky behaviors. We have begun to test this hypothesis with inner-city adolescents and young adults in Newark, NJ, an area of endemic human immunodeficiency virus infection. Study.— Seventy-three subjects (accrued from consecutive visits to our adolescent medicine clinic), 44 male and 29 female, ranging in age from 12 to 22 years (mean±SD age, 16.3±2.7 years) were interviewed concerning their knowledge of and attitudes about AIDS using the DiClemente Survey 1 ; their sexual history and current sexual behavior were assessed using a newly developed sexual human immunodeficiency virus—transmission risk scale (STS). Scores (0 indicates no risk and 5 indicates highest risk) take into account abstinence, fidelity, contact with high-risk individuals, and condom use (S. E. Keller, J. A.

The aids epidemic: Sexual behaviors of adolescents∗

The aids epidemic: Sexual behaviors of adolescents∗

Reference Groups, Religiosity, and Premarital Sexual Behavior

477 freshmen attending 8 colleges affiliated with the churches of Christ responded to questions about their own religious and sexual behaviors, as well as those of their parents and two best friends. Four hypotheses, designed to test the relative influence of parents and peers on the behaviors of adolescents, were advanced in this paper. The religious behaviors of parents and peers were found to be related to both the religious and sexual behaviors of adolescents, although peer religiosity completely overshadows parental religiosity in this regard. This is particulary interesting in that peer religious behaviors (to the best of my knowledge) have not been looked at for potential influence on adolescents' sexual behaviors. Parent and peer sexual behaviors and expectations were also significantly related to adolescents' sexual behaviors, but again peers were the more influential reference group. So strong is peer influence in these data, it is argued that parents no longer constitute an effective reference group by the time adolescents reach college. This holds true for this sample in spite of their being highly religious, a finding that seems to contradict the notion that religiosity extends the influence of parents into the college years.

Biosocial foundations for adolescent female sexuality

Abstract Despite the widespread assumption that hormones stimulate motivation for sexual behavior in adolescence, no published empirical studies have demonstrated this link. In a cross-sectional study of 78 females in the eighth, ninth, and tenth grades in public schools, we show that hormones have effects on sexual motivation and behavior. Comparison with previous results from a parallel sample of males indicates that for both sexes these effects are primarily androgenic in origin and for the most part exert their effects directly rather than through the social interpretation of age and hormone-induced pubertal development.

The link between sexual maturation and ?adolescent grieving? in parents of the dependent disabled

Personal experience suggested that outwardly visible signs of sexual maturation and/or overt sexual behaviour in adolescents with disabilities may act as a catalyst to trigger off an “adolescent grieving” syndrome in parents. During recent extensive professional involvement in the area of human relations and disability, confirmation that this link exists in some families has been received from a variety of sources. The particular patterns and forms in which this was observed will be described and will support the conclusion that professionals who are concerned with assisting parents to accept the sexuality of their disabled children may need to first address the wider issues associated with the grieving process. In addition, some ways in which professionals may assist parents in this situation will be suggested.

Sexual Behavior in Adolescence

Surveys conducted between the 1930s and 1970s on the sexual behavior of adolescents are reviewed. The paper, concentrating on coitus, focuses on the issue of liberalization in sexual behavior. Although there are large discrepancies in data from various surveys, and methodological difficulties associated with most of them, three major conclusions seem warranted. (a) A larger number of older adolescents (in the college years) are sexually experienced now than in earlier generations. (b) There has been a greater increase in incidence of premarital intercourse for females than males, although most surveys still report a higher absolute incidence for males. (c) While data for younger adolescents are less clear, they suggest a trend toward earlier sexual experience for both males and females.

The relationship between family interaction and sexual behavior in adolescence

The relationship between family interaction and sexual behavior in adolescence