Attachment Style, Early Sexual Intercourse, and Dating Aggression Victimization

Abstract

The present study examined relations between attachment style, age at first sexual intercourse, and dating aggression (DA) victimization. In all, 137 heterosexual female undergraduate students 18 to 25 years of age (M = 20.76, SD = 1.87) completed an online questionnaire that included questions regarding sexual history, attachment style (Experiences in Close Relationships Scale), and DA (Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationships Inventory). Initial bivariate correlations revealed that women reported higher rates of DA victimization if they were more anxiously attached (r = .30, p = .000), had an earlier age at vaginal sexual debut (r = -.19, p = .015), and had an earlier age at oral sexual debut (r = -.15, p = .046); however, when entered into a predictive multivariate model, neither the addition of anxious attachment nor an early age at sexual debut accounted for a significant amount of variance above and beyond control variables. Although we were unable to affirm anxious attachment and an early age at first intercourse as risk factors for DA victimization, posthoc analyses emphasized the need to control for social desirability when gathering information on sensitive topics in clinical and research settings.

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