U.S. College Students' Sexual Activity: The Unique and Interactive Effects of Emotion Regulation Difficulties and Attachment Style

ABSTACT

Objectives: This study explored the association between emotion regulation difficulties and sexual activity, and whether emotion regulation difficulties moderated the link between attachment and sexual activity. Methods: U.S. college students (N = 373) from two institutions completed self-report measures of sexual activity, emotion regulation difficulties and attachment. Results: Findings indicated that greater emotion regulation difficulties were associated with less frequent exclusive sexual activity. Moreover, emotion regulation difficulties moderated links between attachment avoidance and sexual activity, and associations varied according to relational context and gender. Conclusions: Implications for promoting sexual health and relationship intimacy are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion regulation difficulties
• attachment avoidance
• attachment anxiety
• sexual activity
• gender differences

Acknowledgements

We thank the staff of the Youth Emotion Center at Williams College and the Relationship Development Center at Stony Brook University, and the individuals who generously gave their time to participate in this project. Portions of these results were presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Association of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies, Nashville, TN. The views expressed in the article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government.

Funding

This research was supported by institutional funds from Williams College. Catherine B. Stroud was supported by institutional funds from Williams College. This article was prepared with the support of the VISN 4 Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA.

Notes

1. To examine whether the 10 items from the scales loaded on two factors representing exclusive and non-exclusive sexual activity, a principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted. Two factors emerged. The items assessing exclusive sexual activity loaded on Factor 1 (eigenvalue = 4.24; percent variance accounted for 42.37%), and those assessing non-exclusive sexual activity loaded on Factor 2 (eigenvalue = 4.02; 40.19%).

2. PROCESS does not accommodate missing data and, thus, cases with missing data (n = 12) were dropped from these analyses.

3. When depressive symptoms were not covaried, all significant results remained, except that emotion regulation difficulties were not significantly associated with exclusive sexual activity (β = −.09; p = .16).

4. When institution was included as a covariate, all of the results remained the same, except for the link between emotion regulation difficulties and exclusive sexual activity, which fell to marginal significance (β = −.13; CR = −1.807; p = .07).

5. Although the interaction was significant for women but not men, in contrast to the primary analyses, the path between the avoidance X emotional clarity interaction and exclusive sexual activity was not significantly different for men and women (p = .18).