Sexual risk behavior,knowledge, and condom use among adolescents in juvenile detention

This paper reports on sexual behavior, knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases (including AIDS) and condoms, and condom use among African-American and white incarcerated adolescents in Seattle, Washington. One hundred nineteen adolescents in a juvenile detention facility completed questionnaires that assessed their lifetime and recent sexual behaviors, an objective test of disease and condom knowledge, attitudes and norms regarding condom use with steady and casual partners, prior condom use, and intentions to use condoms. The results indicate that these adolescents are at high risk by a number of indicators: They have a high average number of partners, have unprotected vaginal and anal sex, and many have sex with known or suspected drug users. Their overall knowledge of condoms and sexual transmitted diseases risks is high, but high knowledge is not correlated with positive attitudes; for one attitude measure, high knowledge is significantly correlated with negative attitudes toward condom use. These findings suggest that programs designed solely to increase knowledge are unlikely to effect behavior change.This research presented in this paper was supported by a research grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Washington. Research interests are in sexual decision making and attitude-behavior relationships.Received Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Washington. Research interests are in sexual behavior and health.Received Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington. Research interests are in problem behaviors of adolescence.     

The influence of levels of information on the use of prospective evaluations

Recent work on voting behavior suggests that both retrospective and prospective evaluations are important components of vote choice. To test the generalizability of the prospective model, (1) the same model of voting behavior is applied to groups of differing cognitive abilities, (2) a comparison of the extent to which each group extrapolates from the past to the future is made, and (3) the frequency with which people of each group respond don't know is examined. The evidence presented supports the hypothesis that the prospective model is generalizable across segments of the population. Alternatively, since there are relatively few differences across categories, one might view this paper as a collection of negative findings.