Influence of cognitive development, self-esteem, and alcohol use on the sexual behavior of adolescents and young adults.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the sexual behavior of adolescents and young adults by examining factors related to cognitive development, self-esteem, and alcohol use. Participants were 59 high school students from two rural high schools, and 41 college students recruited from Introductory and Developmental Psychology classes at a Midwestern university. The specific cognitive measures used for this study were the Imaginary Audience Scale (lAS), the Life Events Questionnaire-Positive Events (LEQ-PE) and the Life Events Questionnaire-Negative Events (LEQNE), and a temporal discounting measure. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) was also used to measure self-esteem, and a Demographic Questionnaire was constructed by the researcher and included questions regarding alcohol use and sexual behavior. Results indicated that the college sample scored significantly higher than the high school sample on the lAS, indicating the college students were less advanced in terms of cognitive development on this measure. The other measures of cognitive development did not produce significant between group differences. The college sample also scored significantly higher on the RSE, indicating that the college sample had higher self-esteem than the high school sample. In addition. the college sample reported a larger number of sexual encounters within the past 30 days than the high school sample. One of six regression equations that were computed was significant; the significant equation utilized frequency of contraception use as the criterion variable, and temporal discounting, pessimistic bias, and frequency of alcohol use in a typical 3D-day period served as predictors. The overall model accounted for approximately 41 % of the variance.