Adolescent romantic relationships and physical intimacy: Reshaping beliefs and behavior toward responsible sexuality

This study aims to uncover beliefs and behaviors that may put adolescents at risk for sexual intimacy with romantic partners and to develop and test the effectiveness of a psycho-educational program designed to reshape those beliefs and behaviors toward responsible sexuality. The initial descriptive phase of the study surveyed 592 senior high school students, aged 15 to 18 years and 100 of their parents. Results showed that parents and adolescents were most concerned about the increased risk for sexual activity and pregnancy among romantically-involved teens, who made up 56 percent of the population. Approximately 12 percent of these teens admitted to having engaged in petting, and 10 percent have already engaged in sexual intercourse. These sexually active teens scored significantly higher on the Remmer\u27s Attitude Scale towards Teen Sex, and espoused permissive beliefs that put them at risk for sexual involvement. These beliefs included: being in love as justifying premarital sex, confidence that contraception eliminates the possibility of pregnancy, and a low value placed on virginity, religious prohibition and parental reactions. During the experimental phase of the study, 80 high school seniors were randomly assigned to a wait-list control group and an experimental group which was exposed to a Workshop Intervention featuring Cognitive Restructuring and Refusal and Resistance Skills Training. At the end of the workshop, post-testing revealed that the experimental group participants developed less permissive attitudes toward premarital sex and displayed more effective refusal behavior skills than their wait-list control counterparts