Abstract
Introduction
Research has documented multiple levels of influences on adolescent sexual behavior but has generally focused less on the relational nature of this behavior. Studies with dyadic data have provided important findings on relationship process, including the role of gender in different-sex dyads. However, both of these bodies of literature typically utilize a variable-centered approach, which examines average influences of particular variables on sexual behavior. This study expands upon this research by presenting a dyad-centered approach to adolescent sexual behavior that can identify types of couples based on patterns of multidimensional risk and protective factors.
Methods
I demonstrate the dyad-centered approach using data from different-sex dyads in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to uncover profiles marked by individual, parent, peer, and religion predictors for both male and female partners.
Results
Analyses uncovered five classes of dyadic influences, four of which were marked by relative similarity between partners and one marked by lesser approval of sex for women compared with men. Dyads marked by both partners intending to have sex and being in a context that is more approving of sex were more likely to engage in sexual intercourse.
Conclusions
Findings demonstrate the heterogeneity of influences and intentions to have sex among adolescent couples and identify profiles of dyads that are more likely to engage in sexual intercourse. This approach can explicate dyadic processes involved in sexual behavior and the types of couples that exist in a population, leading to more tailored and efficacious interventions.
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Data Availability
Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.
Code Availability
All analyses use software packages that are publicly available.
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Funding
This research was supported by NICHD grant R03 HD096101 and NIDA P50 DA039838. This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations.
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Vasilenko, S.A. More Than the Sum of their Parts: a Dyad-Centered Approach to Understanding Adolescent Sexual Behavior. Sex Res Soc Policy 19, 105–118 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-020-00528-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-020-00528-9