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VIRGINITY PLEDGE HELPS TEENS DELAY SEXUAL ACTIVITY
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VIRGINITY PLEDGE HELPS TEENS DELAY SEXUAL ACTIVITY
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| Teens who pledged to remain a virgin until marriage began
sexual activity much later than their peers who did not
take such a pledge, according to an analysis of data from a
study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (NICHD) and several other Federal
agencies. On average, teens who took a public or written
pledge to remain abstinent until marriage delayed having
sex about one-third longer than comparable teens who had
not pledged, the analysis showed. However, the
effectiveness of pledging depended on the student's age.
Among older teens (18 and older), pledging had no effect.
Among 16 and 17 year olds, pledgers delayed sex
significantly compared to non-pledgers. Among the youngest
teens, the effect of pledging depended strongly on the
social environment of the teen's school.
Although the analysis showed that pledgers delayed sexual
intercourse, it also indicated that among those teens who
eventually did begin to have intercourse, pledgers were
less likely to use contraception than were non-pledgers.
"This analysis shows that virginity pledges can be an
effective tool for delaying sexual intercourse in the
teenage years," said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director
of the NICHD. "The analysis has provided sound, substantial
information for educators and others who work with youth to
take into account when planning interventions to help teens
to avoid early sex and its associated risks."
The analysis, conducted by Peter S. Bearman, Ph.D., now of
Columbia University, and Hannah Brückner, Ph.D., now of
Yale University, appears in the January American Journal of
Sociology. The researchers conducted their analysis on
information from the National Longitudinal Study of
Adolescent Health (Add Health), a comprehensive survey of
90,000 seventh through twelfth graders. The survey was
designed to measure the effects of family, peer group,
school, neighborhood, religious institution, and community
on behaviors that promote good health. Detailed information
about the survey is available
http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth. A summary of the survey
and other explanatory materials are available at
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/new/releases/adolescent.html. Dr.
Bearman co-designed the Add Health survey while he was at
the Carolina Population Center of the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH).
The study found that as of 1995, more than two and a half
million adolescents had taken spoken or written pledges to
remain virgins until they marry. The Southern Baptist
Church began the pledge movement and it has since grown to
include hundreds of church, school, and college chapters.
The movement is loosely organized around more than 80
independent organizations that sponsor public pledges and
rallies.
"Early sexual intercourse increases the risk for unwanted
pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS,"
said Christine Bachrach, Chief of NICHD's Demographic and
Behavioral Sciences Branch. "The research by Drs. Bearman
and Brückner highlights a potential strategy for prevention
efforts that should be tested further in experimental
studies."
The two researchers began by analyzing information from
adolescents who were virgins when the Add Health survey
began. The researchers compared the likelihood of later
having sexual intercourse among both pledgers and non-
pledgers. The researchers noted that pledgers and non-
pledgers differed in many respects.
Compared to non-pledgers, pledgers were more likely to be
religious, of Asian ancestry, to score lower on a verbal
vocabulary test, and to be in a romantic relationship. They
were also less advanced in pubertal development, on
average, than were non-pledgers. Dr. Bearman noted that
three of these factors, independent of the virginity
pledge, are likely to result in adolescents delaying sexual
intercourse: being more religious, of Asian Ancestry, and
less advanced in pubertal development. However, the
differences between pledgers and non-pledgers did not
account for pledgers' greater success in delaying sexual
activity. When compared to non-pledgers having these same
three characteristics, pledgers still were more likely to
delay sexual activity a third longer than were non-
pledgers.
The researchers found that the effectiveness of pledging
among the youngest teens depended on the characteristics of
their school. In socially "open" schools -- those in which
students had a large number of friends and romantic ties
outside the school -- the effectiveness of pledging
increased with the number of students who pledged. In fact,
each one percent increase in the proportion of students
pledging resulted in a two percent increase in delaying
sexual intercourse. Pledgers appeared to need the social
support of fellow pledgers in order to remain abstinent.
The researchers observed a very different effect in
socially "closed" schools. In these schools -- where most
friendships and romantic ties occur within the school -- a
higher percentage of pledgers actually decreased the
pledge's effectiveness. If comparatively few adolescents in
these schools pledged, pledging was effective in delaying
sexual intercourse. However, if 30 percent or more of the
students pledged, pledgers were no more likely to delay
sexual intercourse than were non-pledgers. The researchers
theorized that the pledge may appeal to some students
because it gives them a unique identity, apart from the
crowd. After too many of their fellow students joined them
in pledging, abstinence lost its special appeal. The
researchers noted that socially closed schools are in the
minority, composing only 30 percent of schools in the
survey.
"Once the pledge becomes normative, it ceases to have an
effect," Bearman and Bruckner wrote. "The pledge identity
is meaningful, consequently, only if it is a minority
identity, a common situation for identity movements."
The researchers also examined the consequences of breaking
a pledge. Previous studies have found that girls who began
having sex experienced a slight decrease in self-esteem.
Teens who broke their pledges, however, suffered no greater
loss of self-esteem than did non-pledgers who began having
sexual intercourse.
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