Content area
Full text
The measurement of sexual attitudes is important, and ease of scale usability is one key aspect of measurement. This paper details three studies conducted to develop a briefer and thus more efficient version of the multidimensional Sexual Attitudes Scale (43 items; S. Hendrick & Hendrick, 1987b). The first two studies (I and II) employed existing data sets to develop a 23-item version of the Sexual Attitudes Scale, using exploratory factor analysis in Study I and confirmatory factor analysis in Study II. The same four subscales of Permissiveness, Birth Control (formerly called Sexual Practices), Communion, and Instrumentality were retained in the 23-item measure, called the Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale. Study III was a prospective data collection using only the 23 items composing the Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale. The four subscales were hypothesized to correlate with a number of relationship measures in predictable ways. Results indicated that the Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale is a reliable and valid measure of the four sexual attitudes and has strong psychometric properties. It should be effective and efficient for both research and clinical uses.
The Sexual Attitudes Scale (S. Hendrick & Hendrick, 1987b) was originally constructed in the early 1980s because of difficulty in identifying a measure that assessed sexual attitudes in a multidimensional fashion. Original scale development was empirically driven, since there was not a prevailing multidimensional theory of sexual attitudes at that time (see S. Hendrick & Hendrick, 1987b, p. 524). Although instruments were available to assess such constructs as attitudes toward sexual permissiveness (e.g., Reiss, 1964), attitudes toward erotica (e.g., Green & Mosher, 1985), and attitudes toward premarital sexuality (e.g., MacCorquodale & DeLamater, 1979), scales were not readily available that encompassed several attitudinal dimensions within a single measure. Reiss' widely-used sexual permissiveness scale included the sexual behaviors of kissing, petting, and full sexual relations; however, the emotional and attitudinal aspects of sexual relating were not addressed.
The existing clinical literature at that time (e.g., Kaplan, 1974) suggested that sexual relating is a complex web of emotions, attitudes, and behaviors, multiply determined and enacted. Although we do not equate sexual attitudes with sexual behaviors, attitudes and behaviors are often linked (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). The notion of sexual behavior as having a substantial emotional component has become much...