HHS Public Access Author manuscript Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptArch Sex Author Manuscript Behav. Author Author Manuscript manuscript; available in PMC 2016 April 01. Published in final edited form as: Arch Sex Behav. 2015 April ; 44(3): 639–654. doi:10.1007/s10508-013-0193-y. Sexual Scripts and Sexual Risk Behaviors among Black Heterosexual Men: Development of the Sexual Scripts Scale Lisa Bowleg1, Gary J. Burkholder2, Seth M. Noar3, Michelle Teti4, David J. Malebranche5, and Jeanne M. Tschann6 Lisa Bowleg:
[email protected] 1Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, 2125 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052 2College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, The National Hispanic University, San Jose, CA 3School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 4SH/Health Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 5Division of General Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 6Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA Abstract Sexual scripts are widely shared gender and culture-specific guides for sexual behavior with important implications for HIV prevention. Although several qualitative studies document how sexual scripts may influence sexual risk behaviors, quantitative investigations of sexual scripts in the context of sexual risk are rare. This mixed methods study involved the qualitative development and quantitative testing of the Sexual Scripts Scale (SSS). Study 1 included qualitative semi- structured interviews with 30 Black heterosexual men about sexual experiences with main and casual sex partners to develop the SSS. Study 2 included a quantitative test of the SSS with 526 predominantly low-income Black heterosexual men. A factor analysis of the SSS resulted in a 34- item, seven-factor solution that explained 68% of the variance.