The Relationship Between Alcohol and Individual Differences Variables on Attitudes and Behavioral Skills Relevant to Sexual Health Among Heterosexual Young Adult Men

Abstract

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the effects of alcohol, alcohol sex expectancies, and sexual sensation seeking on determinants of sexual health behavior according to the InformationMotivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model. The participants were 48 heterosexual young adult males who attended two laboratory sessions. During Session 1, participants completed a set of screening and individual differences measures, and during Session 2 they were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 beverage conditions: control, alcohol (.65 g alcohol/kg body weight), or placebo. Following the experimental manipulation, all participants completed measures regarding attitudes toward condom use, intention to engage in risky sex, and condom use negotiation skills. The results showed that participants who consumed alcohol had poorer negotiation skills and greater intention to engage in risky sex compared to participants who did not drink alcohol. Although alcohol did not affect any dimension of attitude regarding condom use, attitude about condoms' effects on sex, as well as sexual sensation seeking, were correlated with both intention ratings and skills. Multiple regression models including both attitudes and sensation seeking showed that attitudes accounted for 20% -25% of variance independent of beverage condition in predicting intention ratings and skills. The findings are consistent with past research showing that alcohol consumption can have detrimental effects on determinants of sexual health behavior and that individual differences factors can enhance the power of models like the IMB to predict such behavior.

Alcohol and Sexuality Research in the AIDS Era: Trends in Publication Activity, Target Populations and Research Design

“…In a similar study involving heterosexual men (Maisto et al, 2004b), participants receiving alcohol reported greater intentions for unsafe sex and evidenced diminished behavioral skills relevant to safe sex decision-making. Although no direct or interactive effects of a priori alcohol expectancies were found in this study, other individual difference variables (lower perceived pleasure from condom use and higher levels of sexual sensation seeking; Kalichman et al, 1994) predicted greater sexual risk intentions and reduced behavioral skills.…”

“…While contextual factors can be retrospectively measured using survey methods, experimental approaches can be used to directly manipulate and/ or control for these potential influences, thus serving as a valuable complement to event-level studies. A fourth issue concerns the relative infrequency of theory-based research on the mechanisms underlying alcohol-HIV risk relationships (George & Stoner, 2000;Maisto et al, 2004b;Morris & Albery, 2001). Explication of causal mechanisms represents an important future direction, as failure to pursue and develop theory-driven conceptualizations of alcoholsexual risk relationships could compromise the effectiveness of intervention programs.…”

Effects of Alcohol and Blood Alcohol Concentration Limb on Sexual Risk-Taking Intentions

“…This fi nding was replicated in a subsequent experiment (Maisto et al, 2004a). In a similar study with men, alcohol consumption itself, rather than perceived intoxication, was predictive of men's condom negotiation skill level (Maisto et al, 2004b). Maisto et al (2004a) concluded that at least for women, perceived intoxication plays an important role in behavioral skills related to sexual risk taking.…”

Understanding Alcohol Expectancy Effects: Revisiting the Placebo Condition

“…Placebo effects are most consistently found in sexual arousal studies (George and Stoner, 2000). Across different domains of social behavior, there is only modest evidence to support expectancy hypotheses, even when individual differences in alcohol expectancies are taken into account (Chermack and Taylor, 1995;Fromme et al, 1999;Maisto et al, 2004).…”