Religiosity, sexual behaviors, sexual motivations, and gender: A three‐year longitudinal study

Abstract

Longitudinal data are critical for examining associations of religiosity with sexual behaviors and motivations during college. We use hierarchical linear modeling on five semesters of data from a diverse sample of college students (N = 735) to examine within‐ and between‐person associations between religious service attendance and importance of religion and sexual behaviors and motivations for and against sex and consider gender as a moderator. Between‐person religiosity was associated with sexual behaviors and motivations whereas within‐person religiosity was not. Students' sexual motivations co‐varied across semesters with their religious service attendance and importance of religion. Our results indicated more restrictive associations between religiosity and sexual motivations for women than for men.