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Dissecting Faith: Comparing Religiousness and Spirituality to Self-Construal and Religious Orientation
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by Michael R. Langlais, Katherine L. Kivisto - University of Tennessee at Knoxville
We investigated the relation between communication within adolescent couples and
their sexual and affectionate behaviors. Data came from 209 male-female couples
aged 14–21 who had dated a minimum of 4 weeks. Findings revealed that nonsexual
communication predicted less frequent intimate touching behaviors (over clothes),
less frequent oral sex, and less frequent sexual intercourse. Sexual communication
was associated with greater frequencies of affectionate and sexual behaviors, including
intercourse. Adolescents who tended to have later age of first intercourse also
communicated more openly in their relationships, whereas communication about sex
was unrelated to age of first intercourse.
Winter 2010 | Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research (Vol. 15, No. 4, p. 194), published by Psi Chi, The International Honor Society in Psychology (Chattanooga, TN). Copyright, 2010, Psi Chi, The International Honor Society in Psychology. All rights reserved.