The explosive growth in access to the Internet has led to a commensurate increase in the availability, anonymity, and affordability of pornography. An emerging body of research has shown associations between pornography and certain behaviors and attitudes; yet, how pornography actually influences these outcomes has not been documented. In two studies (Study 1 N = 969; Study 2 N = 992) we examined the hypothesis that pornography influences potentially risky sexual behavior (hooking up) among emerging adults via sexual scripts. Our results demonstrate that more frequent viewing of pornography is associated with a higher incidence of hooking up and a higher number of unique hook up partners. We replicated these effects both cross-sectionally and longitudinally while accounting for the stability of hook ups over the course of an academic semester. We also demonstrated that more frequent viewing of pornography is associated with having had more previous sexual partners of all types, more one occasion sexual partners ("one night stands"), and plans to have a higher number of sexual partners in the future. Finally, we provided evidence that more permissive sexual scripts mediated the association between more frequent pornography viewing and hooking up. We discuss these findings with an eye toward mitigating potential personal and public health risks among emerging adults.

Previous research has suggested that religiosity is associated with positive marital outcomes, but the underlying reasons for this association are not fully understood. We tested the hypothesis that religion influences marriage via partner selection strategies. Specifically, we hypothesized that proximal (more than distal) religiosity would predict partner selection strategies that facilitates positive marital outcomes; we also conducted exploratory analyses examining the influence of religious affiliation. Using a novel methodology that allowed for an examination of explicit and implicit attitudes, we tested our hypotheses using a large sample of emerging adults ( N = 437). Findings indicate that religion influences partner selection preferences, but the effect is not uniformly positive. Religious affiliation, not individual level religiosity (distal or proximal), was the most robust predictor of mate-selection preferences. Possible explanations for these findings and implications for intervention are discussed.

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