Abstract
We compared the dating and sexual attitudes and practices of 83 black and 70 white high school senior girls on a 61-item questionnaire. Generally, black girls showed more tolerance of and experience with sex; yet their views were more influenced by “romantic” and “soap opera” stereotypes drawn from the mass media than were whites'. We also studied how Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) scores covaried with reported sexual experience, arousal, and permissiveness. Even with racial differences controlled, sexual activity was significantly related to the P (impulsivity) and N (proneness toward anxiety) scales (both R2s = + .23, ps ≤ .02), which jointly explained over 25% of the variance. Likewise, girls scoring higher on N and P scales expressed more liberal attitudes toward premarital coitus. In contrast, the only EPQ result for degree of reported sexual arousal was a negative relationship (R2 = −.28, p = .001) with the L scale, a measure of giving socially desirable, conventional responses. Furthermore, the white girls most liberal toward sexual exploration before marriage earned significantly lower L scores (p < .02) than all other respondents combined.
