Abstract
Prior research has shown that among sexually active people, attachment orientation is associated with motives for having sex. This study examined how attachment orientation is also associated with reasons for not having sex. More specifically, the study focused on whether attachment orientation was associated with reasons for not having sex among young adult virgins, as well as their emotional reactions to their virginity status. The sample consisted of 671 “virgin” college students obtained as part of a larger study. They completed an anonymous survey which included a measure of attachment orientation, ratings of the importance of several reasons for being a virgin, and emotional reactions to their virginity status. Results indicated that fearful and dismissing attachment young adults were more likely than secure attachment young adults to say they were still virgins because they were not ready to have sex (e.g., not been in love enough). Differences based on attachment style were also found for affective reactions to the virginity status. Preoccupied attachment young adults had the most negative reaction to their virginity status.
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Data Availability
The data analyzed for the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
Findings included that Black virgin participants, to a greater degree than virgins of other races, indicated they were still a virgin because of the belief that premarital sex was inappropriate and fear of negative outcomes (e.g., pregnancy). Black participants also had more positive emotional reactions to their virginity than did participants of other races. Furthermore, religiosity was a strong predictor of endorsing the reason that premarital sex was wrong.
The question on gender did not include more than three options until the most recent version of the survey.
PCA was chosen rather than Common Factor Analysis because even though the results generated from the two methods are typically very similar, the purpose of PCA is to create index variables from a large set of measured variables in the most optimal way (e.g., https://www.theanalysisfactor.com/the-fundamental-difference-between-principal-component-analysis-and-factor-analysis/) which was the goal for the analysis. Although results are presented for the component scores created from the PCA, a supplementary file is available from the author with the results for each individual item making up these component scores.
These analyses did not include the one participant who chose a gender other than man or woman.
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Sprecher, S. Attachment orientation and reasons for and reactions to “virginity” in college. Curr Psychol 42, 1905–1914 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01535-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01535-8