Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared R. Anderson / The current study tests a theoretical model exploring the relationship between hooking up and marital quality and whether this relationship is mediated by sexual satisfaction and communication using public-use data from currently married participants in Wave IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health, n = 1,729). Gender proved to significantly moderate the association between the variables in the model, but college education did not. The results indicate that hooking up has a direct negative relationship with marital quality for men that is not mediated by either sexual satisfaction or communication. The results for women revealed no direct relationship between hooking up and marital quality, but an indirect influence via communication.

A 2001 national study of college women’s sexual attitudes and behaviors revealed that students have stopped dating and started “hooking up.” Previous studies focused on fraternities and their relation to the rape culture but neglected to connect rape culture to hook up culture. This study evaluated the culture surrounding rape by interviewing seventeen college aged men about masculinity, behavior in male homosocial groups, “hooking up” and rape. It addresses the following questions: 1-How do college men understand “hooking up” and sexual consent? 2-In what ways might men’s understanding of “hooking up” and sexual consent be related to the ongoing incidence of rape on college campuses? 3- How do men understand and adhere to rape myths? In-depth interviews with college men in this study point to their dependence on nonverbal communication when negotiating “hookups,” with implications for their understandings of consent and perpetuation of myths concerning women's sexuality.

abstract: The beginning of college is a period in which increased alcohol use often coincides with greater involvement in romantic relationships. Existing literature yields inconsistent findings regarding the influence of different relationship statuses on drinking behavior, perhaps because these studies have not accounted for recent changes in the way college students engage in dating/sexual relationships. In the current college environment, many students who define themselves as non-daters are nonetheless sexually active, a phenomenon referred to as the 'hook up' culture. The present study sought to address this issue by examining the effects of both relationship status and sexual activity on heavy episodic drinking (HED) among 1,467 college students over the course of their first three semesters. Results indicated that the effects of relationship status depended on whether or not an individual was sexually active. Non-dating but sexually active students reported rates of heavy drinking comparable to students who defined themselves as casual daters, but non-dating students who were not sexually active reported drinking behavior similar to those involved in committed relationships. Further, transitions between low and high risk relationship/sexual activity statuses were associated with corresponding changes in HED. Transitioning into a high risk status was associated with greater levels of heavy episodic drinking, whereas transitioning into a low risk status was associated with decreases in this behavior. Together, results indicate that engaging in nonexclusive dating or sexual relationships may play an important role in the development of problematic patterns of alcohol use during the early college years. These findings have potentially important implications both for future research and for prevention and intervention efforts targeting high risk college drinkers. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Psychology 2012

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Recent empirical evidence suggests that we have entered a new period of courtship known as the hookup era. Contemporary research which explores hooking up has confirmed the prevalence of this dating script, particularly within post-secondary institutions. The relevant literature has focused on a variety of important issues including the conceptual meaning of hooking up and the identification of potential correlates and consequences of these behaviours. Despite this increase in scholarly interest, several problems remain unaddressed. Principal among these is the way(s) in which young women mediate the self-perceived risks involved in the sexual exchange known as the hookup, so as to facilitate their participation in this culture. The current paper examines the controversy that is female hookup participation by investigating the risks – and subsequent negotiation of these risks – which women face in the hookup culture. Specifically, this paper makes use of detailed qualitative data gathered from a sample of female undergraduate students at a medium-sized Canadian university, in order to uncover the social processes by which female proponents of the hookup culture account for their actions to themselves and to others, in this the seemingly risky courtship script. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2013-07-31 19:46:46.027

The purpose of this study was to examine how the intersection of gender scripts, gender identity, and sexual orientation impact perceived narratives and power hierarchies in sexual relationships. To drive participants to verbalize their underlying views about sexual scripts, two highly sexualized and controversial sexual cultures will be examined: casual sex and pornography. Feminist academics and advocates have long argued for a restructuring of sexual politics by implementing feminist principles into personal relations and public life (Connell, 1997). Therefore, competing feminist ideologies will also be assessed to gauge the campus’s feminist climate regarding self-identified feminists’ views on the exploitation and/or the empowerment of women within pornography. Findings from this study indicated that respondents view women’s participation in hookups or pornographic situations similar to how they viewed men’s participation. However, internalized homophobic messages were discovered, particularly from male respondents. The findings also suggest that feminists in this sample were generally accepting of pornography, but that feminism did not play a key role in shaping respondents beliefs.

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Using a subsample of emerging adults from the Stepfamily Experiences Project (n = 989), we examine how parents' repartnering choices (nonmarital and premarital cohabitation) influence their emerging adult children's commitment-related relationship attitudes (attitudes about sex in committed relationships) and behaviors (hooking up). We further examine these processes at the intersection of race and gender. In this way, we expand the current emerging adult literature by exploring two understudied populations: emerging adults who grew up in stepfamilies, and emerging adults from diverse racial backgrounds. We divided our sample by race (black, Latino, American Indian, white, and multiracial) and gender, resulting in 10 groups. We compared those 10 groups using structural equation modeling within the Bayesian framework. We found a strong association for all groups between attitudes about sex in committed relationships and hooking up and a connection between parental cohabitation and hooking up, which connection was only explained by attitudes for white men. We also found significant variation at the intersection of race and gender for all but one of our hypothesized associations. These results highlight the importance of examining variation at the intersection of race and gender and also suggest that family of origin factors, such as parental cohabitation, may impact hooking up among emerging adults raised in stepfamilies.

Research on stepfamilies strongly supports the importance of positive parent-child relationships on child outcomes. However, most of this research has focused on one or two of these relationships failing to acknowledge the interconnected impact of all three parental figures. To fill this gap, I used latent class analysis and identified six classes of parent-child relationship constellations. The national sample in this study (n=1,159) were all participants in The Stepfamily Experiences Project (STEP). Parent-child relationship quality indicators were based on participants' retrospective reports on the warmth/closeness, communication, and level of active parenting they experienced in their stepfamily household. After identifying classes I examined how class membership was affected by resident parent relationships status, EA sex, stepparent sex, years spent in a stepfamily, the age the EA entered the stepfamily and the time spent with the nonresident parent. Finally, I examined how class membership impacted depression, drug use, and hooking up. Ultimately, the analysis indicated that there is much complexity in the stepfamily experience and its potential influence on later life outcomes.

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