Individual differences in sociosexuality: Evidence for convergent and discriminant validity.

Abstract

Individual differences in willingness to engage in uncommitted sexual relations were investigated in 6 studies. In Study 1, a 5-item Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI) was developed. Studies 2, 3, and 4 provided convergent validity evidence for the SOI, revealing that persons who have an unrestricted sociosexual orientation tend to (a) engage in sex at an earlier point in their relationships, (b) engage in sex with more than 1 partner at a time, and (c) be involved in relationships characterized by less investment, commitment, love, and dependency. Study 5 provided discriminant validity for the SOI, revealing that it does not covary appreciably with a good marker of sex drive. Study 6 demonstrated that the SOI correlates negligibly with measures of sexual satisfaction, anxiety, and guilt. The possible stability of, origins of, and motivational bases underlying individual differences in sociosexuality are discussed.

The benefits of simply observing: Mindful attention modulates the link between motivation and behavior.

“…Participants then saw an overview of these pictures and were asked which potential partner they would like to meet most, and how much they would like to meet this person. Finally, participants completed the Sociosexual Orientation Questionnaire (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991) as the individual differences measure of sexual motivation. This assessment occurred at the end of the study to prevent participants' from being suspicious about our research question.…”

Sexually Selective Cognition: Beauty Captures the Mind of the Beholder.

“…During the recognition phase, faces appeared in randomized order. Finally, to assess participants' sociosexual orientation, participants completed the SOI (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991).…”

Single-Attribute Implicit Association Tests (SA-IAT) for the Assessment of Unipolar Constructs

“…Sociosexuality is conceptualized as a personality dimension, with the poles labeled "restricted" (monogamous) sociosexuality and "unrestricted" (promiscuous) so-ciosexuality. On the basis of the observation that sociosexual behaviors, attitudes, and fantasies tend to correlate, Simpson and Gangestad (1991) developed the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI), a seven-item self-report questionnaire that combines measures of sociosexual attitudes, behaviors, and fantasies to an overall score. The SOI has been applied in over 40 published studies (reviewed in Simpson, Wilson, & Winterheld, 2004), including a largescale intercultural study that confirmed its reliability and validity across 48 nations (Schmitt, 2005).…”

“…Sociosexuality is distinct from general sex drive or libido (Ostovich & Sabini, 2004) and unrelated to the interest to engage in sexual activity with a committed relationship partner (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991). Indeed, sexual motivation toward strangers appears to serve completely different functions than sexual motivation in committed relationships (Buss & Schmitt, 1993;Klusmann, 2002).…”

“…It consists of the items of the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI; Simpson & Gangestad, 1991), 12 items in a yes/no format from Eysenck (1976) Therefore, we constructed from the z-standardized items that loaded above .50 on one factor and below .30 on the other factor two short subscales of the SS, the sociosexual attitude scale (items no. 3, 9-12, and 14 of the original SS) and the sociosexual behavior scale (items no.…”