Personality and riskier sexual behaviour: Motivational mediators

Abstract

A model was hypothesized whereby personality traits influenced motives for having sex, which influenced self-determination of safer sex, which influenced riskier sexual behaviour. The study was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. The participants were 18 to 21-year-old university students, 200 of whom were sexually experienced. The model was tested using structural equation modelling. According to the final model, autonomous motivation for safer sex reduced riskier sexual behaviour, whereas controlled motivation had no effect. Agreeableness reduced riskier behaviour by increasing autonomous motivation for safer sex, an effect mediated by intimacy motive for having sex. Conscientiousness reduced riskier sexual behaviour by increasing autonomous motivation for safer sex. Enhancement motive for having sex increased riskier behaviour. Such individual differences in personality and motivational processes should be taken into account when designing interventions to reduce riskier sexual behaviour.

Keywords:

• Personality
• risky sexual behaviour
• motivation
• self-determination

Acknowledgments

We thank Claire Boulton, Kelly Mallon, Priya Pattni, Karen Roche-Galvin, and Catryn Shorney for data collection, and David Markland for comments on a draft.

A presentation based on this dataset was made at the Annual Conference of the European Health Psychology Society, Helsinki, June 2004.