Focusing on Safety or Pleasure Determine Condom Use Intentions Differently Depending on Condom Availability and STI Risk

Abstract

Objective

Regulatory Focus Theory suggests that goal pursuit is driven by two separate and fundamental motives. Being more focused on prevention motivates people to enact safer behaviors and avoid negative outcomes (e.g., to prevent diseases), whereas being more focused on promotion motivates people to take risks and pursue pleasurable experiences (e.g., condomless sex).

Methods

A quasi-experimental study (N = 476) examined if differences in regulatory focus (i.e., prevention vs. promotion) determined condom use intentions with a prospective casual partner, depending on condom availability delay and STI risk cues.

Results

Participants focused on prevention (vs. promotion) were less likely to consider having condomless sex across condom availability delays conditions. However, STI risk cues changed condom use intentions. When STI risk was lower, condom use intentions decreased as condom availability delays increased (particularly for participants focused on promotion). When STI risk was higher, condom use intentions were stronger and consistent across condom availability delays (particularly for participants focused on prevention).

Conclusions

These findings highlight the importance of distinct sexual motives when examining sexual health practices.

Keywords:

• Regulatory focus
• disease prevention
• please promotion
• condom
• sexual delay discounting task

Ethical approval

The study was part of the Prevent2Protect project, previously approved by the Ethics Committee at Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (#70/2021), and was in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Data availability statement

All materials, anonymized data, and syntaxes that support our findings are available upon request from the first author and publicly shared on the Prevent2Protect’s OSF page.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Social Observatory of the “la Caixa” Foundation (Ref.: LCF/PR/SR20/52550001) and by a grant awarded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Ref.: 2020.00523.CEECIND) awarded to DLR.