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Sex Roles (2010) 62:661669 DOI 10.1007/s11199-010-9765-7
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
To Hook Up or Date: Which Gender Benefits?
Carolyn Bradshaw & Arnold S. Kahn & Bryan K. Saville
Published online: 13 March 2010# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract Hooking up on college campuses has become more frequent than dating in heterosexual sexual interaction. Analysis of the relative benefits and costs associated with dating and hooking up suggest that women benefit more from dating while men benefit more from hooking up.U.S students (150 women, 71 men) at a midsized southeastern university indicated preferences for dating and hooking up across a number of situations and indicated the perceived benefits and risks associated with each. As hypothesized, in most situations women more than men preferred dating and men more than women preferred hooking up. Both genders perceived similar benefits and risks to dating and hooking up; differences provided insight into the sexual motives of college women and men.
Keywords Dating . Hooking up . Gender differences
Introduction
Because hooking up has replaced dating as a means for heterosexual sexual interaction on U.S. college campuses, we sought to explore the perceived benefits and costs of hooking up versus dating for U.S. college women and men. We exposed college students to a variety of situations and asked the extent to which they would prefer dating or
hooking up in each situation. Although past research has examined gender roles in college students dating (Laner and Ventrone 2000; Morr Serewicz and Gale 2008; Rose and Frieze 1993), as well as hooking up (Lambert et al. 2003; Paul and Hayes 2002; Paul et al. 2000), research has not explored college student preferences for the two forms of heterosexual interaction.
Traditionally, among heterosexual college students, courtship includes the practice of dating. Although dating can take many forms, research suggests that when asked what happens on a typical date, college students report a predictable pattern that is consistent with traditional gender roles, the man being active and the woman being reactive (Laner and Ventrone 2000; Morr Serewicz and Gale 2008; Rose and Frieze 1993): The man asks the woman to go out with him and informs her where he would like to take her and at what time. He then picks her up and takes her...