The Influence of Sexual Scripts and the “Better than Average” Effect on Condom Responsibility

Young adults attending college are especially susceptible to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) due to high rates of risky sexual behavior (Fisher, Fisher, Misovich, Kimble, & Malloy, 1996). Many college students are aware of the disease risks involved in vaginal and anal intercourse with heterosexual partners (Spears, Abraham, Sheeran, & Abrams, 1995); however, only 35% of sexually active students reported condom use (American College Health Association, 2006; Douglas et al., 1997; Lewis, Miglez-Burbano, & Malow, 2009).

Sexual scripts are the socially prescribed sexual behaviors (Gagnon & Simon, 1973) determined by such factors as gender or culture (Bandura, 1984). For instance, Holland and Ramazanoglu (1992) noted that women may abide by the sexual script that, “Women must maintain a feminine role by being submissive to male partners.” Women who endorse this sexual script may lack the assertiveness skills needed to initiate purchasing condoms, providing condoms, and enforcing condom use (Sacco, Rickman, Thompson, Levine, & Reed, 1993).

Only one study was found that examined the influence of sexual scripts among men. In their study, Dworkin and O’Sullivan (2005) showed that men exemplified traditional “male-dominated” sexual scripts, such as “I’m the man,” and “I’m more aggressive.” The men who endorsed such traditional sexual scripts stated that they initiated sex most of the time; moreover, these men desired to maintain their status as the person who initiates sexual activity. Previous research suggests that men tend to assume a proactive part in sexual scripts (Rose & Frieze, 1993), which may generalize to sexual behaviors such as condom suggestion and condom provision; however, Dworkin and O’Sullivan also documented men’s tendencies to desire a more egalitarian, and even femaledominated, approach to sexual initiation. Sexual scripts may have less of an impact in the realm of sexual decision making than previously thought.

Other psychological mechanisms, such as the better-than-average (BTA) bias, may also contribute to risky sexual decision making (Alicke, Klotz, Breitenbecher, Yurak, & Vredenburg, 1995). Grounded in social comparison theory (Wills, 1981), the BTA bias suggests that people believe that their personal characteristics (e.g., morality) and behavior are “above the 50th percentile” of the population (Larrick, Burson, & Soll, 2007). Overall, the BTA bias functions as a generalized script that reflects a person’s belief that he or she performs better than most others on a wide variety of tasks (Krueger, 1998).

Evidence of the impact of the BTA bias on sexual decision making is limited. One study has shown that college students perceive themselves to be at lower risk than their peers for contracting an STI (Larrick et al., 2007). Data from this study is part of another study that showed college students believe their own intentions for refusing sex and utilizing a condom during a casual sexual encounter are higher than other college students’ (Ross & Bowen, 2011). No studies were found that addressed how the BTA bias may impact beliefs about responsibility for suggesting and providing condoms, both prerequisites to implementation of condom use.

These findings suggest that the discrepancy between STI knowledge and prevention behavior may be related to problematic sexual scripts (Laub, Somera, Gowen, & Diaz, 1999) and the BTA bias (Alicke et al., 1995). Our goal for this study was to examine the impact of sexual scripts and the BTA bias on college students’ ratings of responsibility for suggesting and providing condoms. We first hypothesized that participants would endorse personal responsibility for suggesting condoms after reading a vignette about themselves interacting with a hypothetical other (second person perspective); however, when responding to vignettes describing sexual interaction between two hypothetical others (third person perspective), it was expected that participants would use popular sexual scripts (e.g., “Men are expected to make decisions about sex”) to guide their responses. Second, we predicted that participants would indicate personal responsibility for providing condoms (i.e., better-than-average bias) in response to vignettes written about themselves (second person perspective), but would endorse responses typical of popular sexual scripts (e.g., “Women rely on the male partner for condom usage to appear more feminine”) when...