Elena García-Vega, Rosana Rico and Paula Fernández Psicothema 2017, Vol. 29, No. 2, 178-183 ISSN 0214 - 9915 CODEN PSOTEG Copyright © 2017 Psicothema doi: 10.7334/psicothema2015.338 www.psicothema.com Sex, gender roles and sexual attitudes in university students Elena García-Vega, Rosana Rico and Paula Fernández Universidad de Oviedo Abstract Resumen Background: Previous studies usually refer to a greater repertoire of Sexo, roles de género y actitudes sexuales en estudiantes universitarios. sexual behav-iors and a higher level of erotophilia in men than in women. Antecedentes: la literatura especializada refl eja un mayor repertorio The main goal of this work is to relate sex, gender roles and sexual de conductas sexuales y un mayor nivel de erotofi lia en hombres que en attitudes to sexual behavior. Method: 411 un-dergraduate students (218 mujeres. El objetivo central de este trabajo es analizar las relaciones entre women and 193 men) at theof University of Oviedo (Spain) completed the el sexo de las personas, los roles de género y las actitudes sexuales hacia following instruments: the Bem Sex Roles Inventory to operationalize the el comportamiento sexual. Método: 411 estudiantes universitarios (218 variable gender, the Sexual Inventory which refl ects sexual behaviors, and mujeres, 193 hombres) cumplimentaron los instrumentos: Inventario de the Sexual Opinion Survey about sexual attitudes. Results: 27% of the Roles Sexuales de Bem, Inventario sobre conductas sexuales y Sexual sample was typifi ed as an-drogynous. There are were no differences in Opinion Survey sobre actitudes sexuales. Resultados: un 27% de la muestra attitudes, either by sex (p= .50) or by gen-der (p= .77). Sexual behaviors se tipifi có como andrógina. No se encontraron diferencias en las actitudes, depended on the degree of erotophilia (p= .000). Conclusions: the results ni por sexo (p= .50) ni por género (p= .77). Los comportamientos sexuales suggest that, although regarding sex, the fact that women’s erotophilic dependían del grado de erotofi lia (p= .000). Conclusiones: los resultados attitudes have increased their erotophilic attitudes, although they refer to sugieren que, respecto del sexo, aunque las mujeres han incrementado more conventional sexual behaviors than mens’s attitudes. With regard to sus actitudes erotofílicas, si bien refi eren un comportamiento sexual gender, a tendency towards androgyny is observed, androgynous women más convencional que los varones. Respecto al género, se observa una and men report positive attitudes towards sexuality. Gender could act as a tendencia hacia la androginia, las mujeres y hombres andróginos refi eren mediator of sexual behavior through the attitudinal component. actitudes más positivas hacia la sexualidad. Se concluye que el género Keywords: sexual behavior, gender, erotophilia, erotophobia. podría actuar como un mediador del comportamiento sexual a través del componente actitudinal. Palabras clave: comportamiento sexual, género, erotofi lia, erotofobia. Although in recent years the study of psychosocial aspects of with being a man or a woman (biological sex), but rather involve sexual behavior has increased and the importance of gender in the the stereotypes that each society establishes at certain times, organization of women’s and men’s sexual behavior has received although such behaviors do occur more in one sex than in the growing support, most studies carry out a dual analysis only using other. In contrast, it could be an explanatory variable of the greater two genders (feminine and masculine) which correspond to women homogeneity of sexual behavior in boys and girls. In this context, the and men with no exceptions (Delgado, Estrada, & López, 2015; need to consider gender as a variable of analysis is proposed (Bem, Fernández, Quiroga, Escorial, & Privado, 2016; Gili et al., 2016). 1981; Fisher & Walters, 2003; García-Vega, Menéndez Robledo, Building gender role identity (i.e., such identity that picks the must of Fernández, & Rico, 2010; Rammsayer, Borter, & Troche, 2016). being a man or a woman) is a complex process involving biological, In addition, sexual behaviors are infl uenced by sexual attitudes, social, cultural and psychosocial factors. However, almost no in which differences are also observed (Meston & Ahrold, 2010; studiesy assesses gender empirically in any way. This assumption Petersen & Hyde, 2010). “Attitude” is a complex concept; in this of gender in sex is problematic because it lacks scientifi c precision research we focus on the attitude toward sexuality, understood and external validity (Coyote & Sharma, 2011). as erotophilia-erotophobia, referring to the presence of pleasant Relating gender roles to young people’s sexuality may be a (or unpleasant) ideas and cognitions as some sort of positive (or good way to determine which sexual behaviors have little to do negative) predisposition towards sexuality. Fisher (1986) and Fisher, Byrne, White, and Kelley (1988) found that erotophobic subjects feel unpleasant emotional reactions towards sexual Received: December 21, 2015 • Accepted: December 16, 2016 stimuli, assessing them negatively, whereas erotophiles express Corresponding author: Elena García-Vega favorable emotions towards and assessments of sexual stimulation, Facultad de Psicología which leads them to seek sexual stimuli. Universidad de Oviedo 33003 Oviedo (Spain) Some sexual patterns seem more consistent, and so studies e-mail: [email protected] generally report that boys are more erotophilic and show greater 178 Sex, gender roles and sexual attitudes in university students interest in a larger variety of sexual behaviors and fantasies than “Not very conventional and solitary sex” and the third factor “non- girls, although there is evidence of a decrease in these differences conventional and/or violent sex”. (García-Vega et al., 2010; Injuve, 2010; Larrañaga, Yubero, & Yubero, 2012). In addition, stereotyped masculinity, rather Procedure than femininity, is related to a wide range of positive aspects of sexuality (Kurpisz et al., 2011). After informing and obtaining permission from the The main aim of this study is to relate sex, gender roles, and corresponding university departments, one of the researchers sexual attitudes to sexual behavior in a population of university delivered the pen and paper questionnaires to the students in each students. The fi rst objective is to examine the relationship between participating class. Students were informed that participation sex as a subject variable (woman-man), gender (masculine, was voluntary, answers would be anonymous and respondents feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated) and sexual attitudes; had to provide only their sex and age. All the attending students the second objective is to examine the relationship between sex, were willing to participate, although 29 of them left a number gender, and sexual behaviors; and the third objective is to identify of questions blank. The average time required to complete the whether sexual attitudes really have any relationship with sexual questionnaires was 45 minutes. behavior, on the assumption that attitudes predispose one to act. Data analysis Method Multivariate analysis of variance (Wilks’ Lambda), univariate Participants analysis (ANOVA Fisher and Student T) and multiple comparisons (Sheffé and Bonferroni) were carried out. In cases where the size The University of Oviedo (Spain) has about 22,000 students. of the groups was unequal, we observed that variances were The sample of this study initially comprised 440 (2%) university heterogeneous and non-normally distributed. In these cases, we students, but 29 were removed due to missing data so the fi nal chose to perform the analysis by nonparametric statistics (Mann- sample was composed of 411 students. Of these, 53% (n= 218) Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis). were women (M age = 20.61 years old; SD = 3.54) and 47% (n= 193) We used a contingency table and two associated statistics were men (M age = 20.09; SD = 3.21). The mean age of the overall associated: the Pearson chi-squared test, to test the independence sample was 20.35 (SD = 3.37), ranging from 18 to 24. Participants between two variables (sex and gender); and the coeffi cient of were studying different disciplines: 38 % Social sciences (n=156); contingency, to test the degree of association between the two 9% Arts and humanities (n= 36); 10% Experimental sciences variables. Pearson´s correlation (p<.05) between sexual attitudes (n= 41); 10% Health sciences (n= 43) and 31% engineering and and behaviors was considered signifi cant in this study. architecture (n= 127). Results Instruments Relation between sex, gender, and sexual attitudes Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1974). A reduced version adapted to the study population (BSRIr) by Fernández et al. The fi rst objective was to examine the relationship between sex (2008) was used. It consists of 22 adjectives, 11 are stereotypically (woman-man), gender (masculine, feminine, androgynous, and masculine, and 11 are feminine. Once the inventory is completed, undifferentiated) and sexual attitudes. Related to Regarding sexual the sample can be classifi ed into four categories: masculine, attitudes as a function of sex (Table 1), the multivariate analysis of feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated. To estimate internal variance yielded no signifi cant sex differences (p = .50; η2 = .001; consistency of the BSRIr, the alpha coeffi cient was computed for 1-β = .103) when analyzing the total score of the Erotophobia- the total sample,