Date of Award
Spring 4-21-2011
Document Type
Honors Project
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
Department
Psychological Science
Department Chair or Program Director
Steckler, Debra
First Advisor
Erchull, Mindy J.
Second Advisor
Liss, Miriam
Third Advisor
Kilmartin, Christopher
Major or Concentration
Psychology
Abstract
Descriptive and injunctive norms have been shown to influence people’s perceptions of what actions are considered appropriate. Social norms research with sexual behaviors has shown that women perceived other women to be highly sexually active when, in reality, these norms were not accurate. We anticipated the same pattern of misperceptions and wanted to see if perceived number of partners and permissive attitudes of best friends and the typical freshman could predict women’s own number of partners controlling for their own attitudes. Participants included 156 heterosexual, freshman women from a liberal arts university. We found that women perceived their friends and the typical freshmen woman to have more sexual partners and be more comfortable participating in various sexual activities than was true of themselves. We also found that perceptions of others’ sexual attitudes and behaviors could predict the number of participants’ sexual partners above and beyond their own sexually permissive attitudes.
Recommended Citation
Zelin, Alexandra I., "Is Everybody Doing It? Sex in the College Freshman Female Population" (2011). Student Research Submissions. 3.
https://scholar.umw.edu/student_research/3