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Refusing unwanted sexual activity: A component analysis of adolescent sexual refusal skills
Abstract
Adolescents report occasionally engaging in sexual activity when they do not want to that often results in deleterious effects for them, as well as society. Unwanted sexual activity has been targeted because adolescents who engage in unwanted sexual activity are at increased risk to experience negative sequelae surrounding sexual activity. Adolescents are also more likely to perceive training to avoid situations that they find undesirable to be a more acceptable approach than an intervention that seeks to teach them to avoid all sexual activity. A necessary first step in training adolescents to avoid unwanted sexual activity is to determine the behavioral components of a socially competent refusal. This study represented a pioneering effort to determine behavioral components adolescents feel are important in communicating an effective sexual refusal. Subjects were 117 males and 72 females aged 14-19. The study was conducted in three phases. Subjects in Phase I were able to identify several novel behavioral cues they felt were important in refusing sexual activity. Subjects in Phase II ranked ordered behavioral components. The subjects indicated the most important components to be voicing refusal, leaving the situation, serious facial expression, and stating her feelings. Interesting gender differences in the rank ordering of components were evident. Males rank ordered components with a negative valance more highly than did girls, who tended to rank order more subtle components indicative of sincerity more highly than did boys. Subjects in Phase III rated the effectiveness of refusal behavior in video-taped vignettes represented by the components. A gender by component mixed model repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted. There was a significant main effect for components. All post hoc comparisons were significant. Leaving the situation and refusal with strong affect were rated more highly, while refusal with low affect was rated as the least effective. Implications for training were discussed.
Subject Area
Developmental psychology|Social psychology
Recommended Citation
Grow, Crystal Rae, "Refusing unwanted sexual activity: A component analysis of adolescent sexual refusal skills" (1995). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9615288.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9615288