This questionnaire survey investigated the causal attributions made about outcomes of sexual experiences. Subjects were queried about the extent to which self, partner, the situation and a new dimension--the sexual relationship--were responsible for the results of sexual encounters. / The sample consisted of 233 male and female, graduate and undergraduate students at Florida State University enrolled in Home and Family Life, Business, Sociology, and Psychology courses. / It was hypothesized that attributional differences would be a function of the satisfaction experienced in a given sexual interaction as well as the gender and sexual history of the individual subject. The extent to which persons viewed themselves as satisfied and involved in their general relationship also was hypothesized to predict the kinds of attributions made. / Analysis of variance and hierarchical regression were performed to analyze the data. The results indicated that subjects ascribed significantly more importance to their sexual relationship, their partners, and themselves when making attributions about satisfying sexual outcomes versus unsatisfying ones. There was a significant interaction between outcome and gender for the partner attribution measure. Women made more partner attributions for satisfying sexual outcomes than did men; men made more partner attributions for unsatisfying outcomes than did women. There was also an interaction between outcome and sexual history for the sexual relationship attribution dimension. Women with a problem history of experiencing sexual satisfaction made significantly more attributions to the sexual relationship for current unsatisfying outcomes than did women with a problem free history. / General relationship satisfaction accounted for a consistent but small amount of the variance in predicting causal ascriptions to the sexual relationship for satisfying sexual outcomes, especially for women. Relationship variables did not appear to predict the use of other attributional dimensions. / The results suggest that men and women are quite similar in their attributional patterns about sexual outcomes and that those differences which do appear may be a function of ego-enhancing, ego-protective or role norm consensus biases. Finally, the study strongly advocates that a relationship dimension be included in subsequent attributional research on interpersonal processes. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-12, Section: B, page: 4969. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74721 |
| Contributors | FRANK, DEBORAH IRENE., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 131 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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