The purpose of this study was to explore sex differences in the use and evaluated helpfulness of advice received before marriage. In addition, this study explored who typically gave premarital advice. Advice is considered by some to be a form of social support which can be helpful or hurtful to the marriage relationship. The sex of the advice-giver and advice-receiver as well as the relationship quality between them was explored in order to highlight how these variables affect advice use and helpfulness. Utilizing a questionnaire and interviews with individual newlywed husbands (n = 56) and wives (n = 56), data were collected and analyzed. Advice was mostly given by mothers, fathers, friends, and religious leaders. Generally, both husbands and wives used the advice they were given and both evaluated the advice as helpful. Sex did not have a significant impact on advice use or helpfulness, but in some cases, the relationship between the advice-giver and advice-receiver significantly influenced the use and evaluated helpfulness of advice.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between adolescent premarital sexual attitudes, motivations, behavior, and cognitive style (style of decision-making process). A review of the literature indicated that deviant behaviors among youth are related to one another and that they are also related to ego identity and cognitive style. No previous study had specifically examined sexual behavior, attitudes, and motivations in relation to cognitive style. A self-report questionnaire was employed to gather information about cognitive style and sexual behaviors, attitudes, and motivations. The sample was comprised of 579 university students ages 17 to 25 from Utah and Arizona. The dependent variables were sexual attitudes, motivations, and behaviors. The independent variable, cognitive style, was measured with Berzonsky's Cognitive Style Inventory. As hypothesized, a notable difference was shown between the diffuse-oriented and norm-oriented youth . Diffuse-oriented individuals tended to be more sexually active and more liberal and flippant in their attitudes about this behavior, and cited more external consequences for sexual activity than norm-oriented individuals, who were more abstinent and more conservative in their attitudes. Information-oriented individuals recognized positive internal consequences for sexual behavior beyond that of the norm-oriented and diffuse-oriented. Frequency of contraceptive use among sexually active adolescents was not significantly different across the cognitive ·styles. Limitations and recommendations were discussed.

Discriminant function analysis was performed on data from 87 female volunteers who were between the ages of 21 and 53 years old and who had been married at least one time. Sixty-two of the subjects had no history of premarital pregnancy; 18 subjects had been pregnant when they married; and seven subjects had an induced abortion before marriage. All groups were discriminated (p < .05) by the variables of marital adjustment, lack of emotional vulnerability, masculinity, chance locus of control, powerful others locus of control, and number of marriages. Women with a history of premarital pregnancy were less satisfied with their present or most recent marriage and tended to have had more marriages; they also were higher on belief in chance, lower on belief in powerful others, lower on instrumentality and more lacking in emotional vulnerability than were women without history of premarital pregnancy. The two groups with history of premarital pregnancy were discriminated (p < .05) by marital adjustment and lack of emotional vulnerability. Women who married when pregnant were less satisfied with their present or most recent marriage and were more emotionally vulnerable than were women who had abortions prior to marriage.

Romantic, dyadic relationships arise, in part, from communication, disclosure, and boundaries. Information communication technology (ICT), such as smartphones, has rapidly integrated into our personal lives and affected relationship initiation, maintenance, and dissolution. To this point, models attempting to account for this emerging dynamic center on past theories about relationships. However, counselors and researchers would benefit from understanding contemporary couple dynamics that reflect the ICT-mediated changes to coupling that occurred during the last decade. To address this need, researchers conducted a grounded theory study to explore relationship dynamics, mediated by ICT, based on stories and descriptions provided by 16 participants. Findings showed technology influenced relationships in four domains: access, intimacy, boundaries, and presence.

Little is known about the role that personality and emotional readiness factors may play in participation and outcomes of premarital education programs in varying formats. Data collected via the RELATionship Evaluation Questionnaire (RELATE: Busby et al., 2001) was used to analyze how personality and emotional readiness factors affect perceived change and helpfulness in self-directed and workshop formats of premarital education for 384 individuals who participated in such interventions. Depression was significantly and negatively related to participant perception of positive change and helpfulness in a workshop setting. Kindness was positively and significantly related to perceived positive change in both workshop and self-directed formats, and income was negatively and significantly related to perceived positive change in workshop settings. Anxiety was significantly and positively related to perceived helpfulness in workshop settings. Implications of these findings are discussed. More research is needed to compare these results to other formats of premarital interventions, such as classes and counseling formats, and to more diverse population samples.

The purpose of this study was to identify the partners' traits and skills that predict relationship satisfaction in committed, premarital relationships in which one person has neurotic traits, as well as to examine the degree of consensus about neuroticism for both individuals. Data from 198 never-married, young adult, premarital couples who had completed the RELATionship Evaluation (RELATE) questionnaire were used in the analyses. Measures of perceived partner traits and skills included levels of empathic communication, clear sending, flooding, kindness, flexibility, criticism, and contempt and defensiveness. Relationship satisfaction as measured by RELATE was the criterion variable. Results showed little agreement between self and partner perceptions of the specific neurotic traits manifested by neurotic individuals; that is, levels of anxiety, depression, anger, and low self-esteem. A negative relationship between partner-rated neurosis and each person's relationship satisfaction, however, was present for both genders. The significant positive predictors of the neurotic female actor's relationship satisfaction were her perceptions of her partner's: 1) empathic communication, 2) flexibility, and 3) clear sending, as well as 4) the length of the relationship. The only significant predictor of the non-neurotic male partner's relationship satisfaction was the neurotic female actor's perception of his empathic communication. The significant predictors of the neurotic male actor's relationship satisfaction were his perceptions of his partner's: 1) criticism (a negative relationship), 2) kindness, 3) flooding (a negative relationship), and 4) empathic communication. The significant predictors of the healthy female partner's relationship satisfaction were the neurotic male actor's perceptions of her: 1) kindness, 2) flexibility, 3) criticism, 4) flooding, and 5) empathic communication, as well as 6) the length of the relationship. These results suggest that certain partner traits and skills may help to increase the relationship satisfaction for both partners in relationships in which one partner possesses neurotic traits. Implications of these results for therapists working with premarital couples in which one partner has neurotic traits are outlined.

The development of the Remarital Assessment Questionnaire for Divorced Persons (RAQ-D) is presented. Steps of development of the questionnaire are outlined: a review of remarital literature, interviews with remarried couples, the creation of a pool of items, review of the items by clinicians, and the development of a preliminary questionnaire. Data were collected through the internet. An Exploratory Factor Analysis of the data yielded scales relating to adjustment areas that are specific to remarital couples. The resulting scales exhibited acceptable level of internal consistency. Psychometric properties of the resulting scales are reported. Implications and recommendations of further development of the resulting scales are discussed.

This study investigates the relationship between several independent measures and premarital sexual activity among 1,393 LDS teenagers living along the east coast. Results indicate that among these LDS teens, exposure to pornography is strongly and significantly related to the probability of having engaged in premarital sex. This holds true even when controlling for peer influence, family structure, religiosity, gender, and age. Teens who were exposed to pornography (1 to 24 exposures) are 2.6 times more likely to have engaged in sex as compared to those who report no exposure to pornography. Furthermore, those teens exposed to a higher amount of pornography (25 or more exposures) were 5.7 times more likely to have engaged in sex as compared to those who report no exposure.Other interesting findings show that peer influence, private religiosity, and relationship with mother are also significantly related to the probability of having engaged in sex. Gender is also a significant predictor of sex among this group of teens, however, the females in this sample have a higher probability of having engaged in premarital sex. This finding is different than most other studies on teen sexuality which show a higher probability for males than females.Implications for future research suggest that studies done to determine the predictors of premarital sex among teens should not ignore the potential impact of exposure to pornographic material.

No description available.

The aim of this study is to measure the perceived parental attitudes of Turkish college students towards dating and premarital sexual behavior and to examine how these attitudes differ with respect to gender of the students and parental marital status. The participants of the present study were 160 college students. Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire, with two scales, which were measuring perceived parental attitudes toward dating behavior and perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexual behavior. Results indicated that, both gender of students and parental divorce affect students&rsquo / perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexual behavior / with the use of Wilk&rsquo / s criterion, both of the DVs were significantly affected both by gender F(2,155) = 14.85, p &lt / .01 and parental divorce F(2,155) = 23.42, p &lt / .01, and by their interaction F(2,155)= 10.84, p&lt / .01. There was a significant gender difference about perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexual behavior / male students perceived their parents&rsquo / attitudes as more permissive toward premarital sexual behavior, but female students perceived their parents&rsquo / attitudes as less permissive toward premarital sexual behavior. However, in terms of parental attitudes toward dating, there was no significant difference due to gender. There was also a significant difference in perceived parental attitudes in terms of parental marital status with respect to dating and premarital sexual behavior. Children of divorced parents perceived their parents&rsquo / attitudes in a more permissive way, however children whose parents are still married perceived their parents&rsquo / attitudes as less permissive, toward both dating and premarital sexual behaviors. The interaction of gender and parental marital status were both significant due to perceived parental attitudes toward dating behavior F(1,155)= 12.41, p&lt / .01 and due to perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexual behavior F(1,155)= 19.80, p&lt / .01. In terms of perceived parental attitudes toward dating, females whose parents are divorced tend to perceive parental attitudes significantly more permissive than females whose parents are married, whereas males whose parents are divorced did not significantly differ from the males whose parents are married. Moreover, males whose parents are married tended to perceive parental attitudes significantly more permissive than females whose parents are married toward dating behavior, whereas females and males whose parents are divorced did not significantly differ. In terms of perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexuality, both females and males whose parents are divorced tend to perceive parental attitudes significantly more permissive than females and males whose parents are married, however the difference between females whose parents are divorced vs. married is significantly larger than the difference among the males whose parents are divorced vs. married. Moreover, males whose parents are married tended to perceive parental attitudes significantly more permissive than females whose parents are married toward premarital sexual behavior, whereas females and males whose parents are divorced did not significantly differ. Department of the student, city mostly lived in, father education, mother education, and number of siblings of the student were not found to be correlated with the perceived parental attitudes of college students toward dating and premarital sexual behavior. The results of the present study are discussed in the light of the literature, and limitations and future suggestions are presented.