What Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Cues Lead to Sex?: An Analysis of the Traditional Sexual Script

Abstract

Using Gagnon's (1990) sexual script framework and Beatty, McCroskey, and Valencic's (2001) communibiological perspective, this article examined the communication cues within the traditional sexual script that led to perceptions of the likelihood of sex. These perceptions were examined in 3 settings: public, private, and bedroom. As predicted, there was a positive linear trend in perceptions of the likelihood of sex. In the public and bedroom settings, affinity-seeking competence predicted the likelihood of sex. In the public and private settings, verbal aggressiveness predicted the likelihood of sex.

Keywords:

• Affinity-Seeking Competence
• Communibiology
• Likelihood of Sex
• Sexual Script
• Verbal Aggressiveness

An earlier version of this article was presented at the National Communication Association's annual conference, San Diego, CA, 2008.

Notes

^a Correlations corrected for attenuation due to error in measurement appear in the upper diagonal of the matrix.

*p < .05. **p ≤ .01.

There have been studies that have examined sexually coercive messages that are verbally aggressive (cf. Muehlenhard & Schrag, 1991), but these studies have not measured verbal aggressiveness.

There was one bedroom setting item (59) that cross-loaded (factor loading = .33) on the private setting factor. Given the number of loadings calculated, however, this finding could be attributable to sampling error. Therefore, it was retained in the three-factor solution.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Betty H. La France

Betty H. La France (Ph.D., Michigan State University, 1998) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University.