Sexual Attitudes Among College Students

Pluralistic Ignorance and Hooking UP

The peer-reviewed article published in The Journal of Sex Research (Pluralistic Ignorance and Hooking UP) -- written by Lambert, Kahn, and Apple from James Madison University -- seeks to find out (through research using 136 female and 128 male college students) the attitudes and level of ignorance involved in casual sexual relations.

This article was published about twelve years ago, but it is likely that the attitudes and approaches to casual sexual relations among college students is essentially the same, albeit that is an assumption that is not backed up by research. To begin with, the authors describe "pluralistic ignorance" -- a key point in this presentation -- as though each person thinks that privately he or she is unique and not part of the norm (Lambert, et al. 2003). But the individual nonetheless goes along with the norm "…because of a desire to fit in" (Lambert, 129). This is basically an old axiom -- a kind of mindless "going along with the crowd" (no matter what the person is conflicted about inside). In fact, 88% of male college students in this research and 86% of females admitted they had "hooked up" at least once (Lambert, 129).

One of the main themes (hypothesis) is that male students are more apt to change their minds -- from their original discomfort with drinking, for example -- in order to blend in with the crowd. The article also shows through research that males expect to have sex sooner than females, which doesn't seem to be a revelation given countless other available studies on sexual attitudes, but the added component here is pluralistic ignorance (going along with the crowd). A main hypothesis, as the authors revealed (130), is that because of pluralistic ignorance males and females would "overestimate" the others' comfort with hooking up.

The students that were approached were walking into the library or they were approached in their dorm rooms; the questions were quite pointed but students were told they didn't have to answer if they felt uncomfortable (notwithstanding that the answers were totally anonymous and confidential. The hypotheses that the authors presented at the outset of the article seemed to fall into place; that is on page 131 the results of the surveys showed that using appropriate measurements and procedures most of the participants believed that "other college students were more comfortable hooking up than they were."

Why is this research important? One suspects that any research into the sexual behavior of college students has some merit. Knowing that male and female college students both overestimate the comfort level of their peers vis-a-vis hooking up doesn't seem like it solves any social problems or delves into student rape or inappropriate behaviors -- but in social science and psychology these data apparently have value.

What were the variables in the study? One variable reported by the authors included that when participants estimated the level of comfort their peers reflected. That is, participants showed "significantly less variability" when they rated what the level of comfort might be in their peers as to hooking up, than they showed in their own self-ratings (Lambert, 131). When it came to participants' personal comfort levels with hooking up, males and females showed "greater uniformity" as to how they viewed the beliefs of others. By using multivariate analysis of variance, the authors were able to determine what they hypothesized in the beginning -- that men showed "significantly greater comfort" with various sexual behaviors than females do (Lambert, 131).