Adolescents' perceptions of friends' and parents' attitudes to sex and sexual risk‐taking

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Abstract
This study investigated the association between adolescents' perceptions of parental and peer attitudes towards sexuality and AIDS precautions, and the risky sexual behaviours of 1008 sexually active, heterosexual undergraduate students aged 17‐20 years. Students were asked to rate the extent to which their mothers, fathers and friends would agree or disagree with 16 statements reflecting support of the adolescent engaging in sexual behaviour and using sexual precautions, including precautions against AIDS. The adolescents also indicated whether they were sexually active and their level of condom use in both ‘regular’ (or steady) and ‘casual’ relationships. Results indicated that adolescents perceived their parents as non‐liberal in their sexual attitudes and relatively unlikely to discuss sex or precautions with them. Parents were viewed as more accepting of their sons' sexual behaviours than of their daughters'. Adolescents believed that peers were more likely to discuss sexuality and precautions than parents, and were more liberal in their sexual attitudes. Adolescent sexual risk‐taking was related to the perceived attitudes of significant others in ways which varied across gender and type of relationship. Implications for interventions are discussed.